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President Barack Obama visits the towns where these tragedies take place and pays the nation's respect by addressing memorial services. At a recent memorial service following the massacre of elementary school children in Connecticut, the president said, "We can't tolerate this anymore."
Meanwhile one of the most horrific school shootings took place in April, 1999, at Colorado at Columbine High School near Denver. The carnage from that outrage is still vivid in the minds of those affected, and with every new school shooting the grief from past slaughters comes back fresh in the mind. In this paper the "Final Report and Findings of the Safe School Initiative" from the U.S. Secret Service and the U.S. Department of Education will be reviewed and critiqued. Along with that critique, the findings from the Governor of Colorado's commission report on Columbine, and other reports related to school shootings will be presented.

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Answer the following questions (use complete sentences):
1. What stands out to you in this political cartoon?
2. Based on the cartoon, how has the interpretation of the second amendment changed overtime?
3. What do you think changed the interpretation of the 2nd amendment overtime?

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Define the following words listed below:
1. Militia
2. Infringe
3. Prefatory
4. Operative

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Are rules and guidelines that were created over 200 years ago still applicable today? Why or why not? Please respond in complete sentences. (3-5 sentences)

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Use the resources below (in this column) to help you answer the following questions:
1. which states have the highest and lowest gun homicide rates?
2. How do gun laws differ in states like California and Arizona?
3. Where is it legal for adults to carry concealed weapons?
4. What does the federal background check loophole refer to?
5. How do gun ownership rates in America compare to other nations?
6. Which states have the strictest/loosest gun laws?
7. On what grounds did the U.S. supreme Court strike down Washington D.C.'s handgun ban?

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Answer the questions to the left here!

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Carrying a concealed handgun in public is permitted in all 50 states as of 2013, when Illinois became the last state to enact concealed carry legislation. Some states require gun owners to obtain permits while others have "unrestricted carry" and do not require permits.

Proponents of concealed carry say concealed carry deters crime, keeps individuals and the public safer, is protected by the Second Amendment, and protect women and minorities who can't always rely on the police for protection.

Opponents of concealed carry say concealed carry increases crime, increases the chances of a confrontation becoming lethal, is not protected by the Second Amendment, and that public safety should be left to professionally qualified police officers. Read more background...

Pro & Con Arguments

Pro 1

Concealed handguns deter crime.

In a landmark study that analyzed FBI crime data, John R. Lott, Jr., PhD, found that states that implemented shall-issue concealed carry laws reduced murders by 8.5%, rapes by 5%, aggravated assaults by 7%, and robberies by 3%. Lott calculated that 1,570 murders, 4,177 rapes, 60,000 aggravated assaults, and 12,000 robberies could have been prevented between 1977 and 1992 if concealed carry had been legal in every US state during that time period.

John Malcolm, JD, Vice President of the Institute for Constitutional Government, and Amy Swearer, JD, Visiting Legal Fellow at the Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, stated, "Between 2007 and 2015, murder rates dropped 16 percent and violent crime rates dropped 18 percent, even though the percentage of adults with concealed carry permits rose by 190 percent." They continued, "Regression estimates show a significant association between increased permit ownership and a drop in murder and violent crime rates. Each percentage point increase in rates of permit-holding is associated with a roughly 2.5 percent drop in the murder rate."
Read More

Pro 2

Carrying a concealed gun keeps the individual carrying the gun and the public safer.

Larry Keane, JD, Senior Vice President for Government & Public Affairs for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, stated, "Although the news stories rarely get coverage beyond their immediate media market, individuals with legally concealed carry firearms have successfully protected themselves and have come to the assistance of their fellow citizens on numerous occasions. They have also aided law enforcement officers who were in grave danger. As the number of permits holders has risen there has not been a 'Wild West' of reckless gunfire that the anti-gun activists have long predicted."

According to Amy Swearer, JD, Legal Fellow at the Meese Center, and Cooper Conway, a member of the Young Leaders Program at The Heritage Foundation, "Americans defend themselves with their firearms between 500,000 and 3 million times every year. It's unclear how many of these defensive gun uses involve concealed-carry permit holders carrying in public places, but our own records show that concealed-carry permit holders can and do save lives." They continue, "Moreover, concealed-carry permit holders have intervened to stop many scenarios that likely would have turned into mass killings but for their actions."
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Pro 3

The right to carry concealed handguns is protected by the Second Amendment.

The Second Amendment states: "a well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed."

The federal 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, in the Dec. 11, 2012 case Moore v. Madigan, ruled that the Second Amendment's right to bear arms "must be interpreted to include a right to have a concealed gun in public, to have it ready for use, and to have it for self-defense."

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Hawaii's restrictive carry policies in July 2018. The ruling stated, "We do not take lightly the problem of gun violence. But, for better or for worse, the Second Amendment does protect a right to carry a firearm in public for self-defense."

Joseph Greenlee, JD, Director of Research at the Firearms Policy Coalition, explained, "The Supreme Court has elucidated that the scope of the Second Amendment is defined by the founding-era understanding of the right, as informed by American history and tradition. A historical analysis shows that both concealed and open carry are protected by the right, and that a government may only restrict one if the other remains available for law-abiding citizens to exercise."
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Pro 4

Concealed handguns protect women and minorities who can't always rely on the police for protection.

David French, senior writer at the National Review and a veteran of the Iraq War, explained, "when you [concealed] carry your weapon, you don't feel intimidated, you feel empowered. In a way that's tough to explain, the fact that you're so much less dependent on the state for your personal security and safety makes you feel more 'free' than you've ever felt before."

John R. Lott, Jr., PhD, found that, "between 2012, and 2018, the percent of women with permits grew 111% faster for women and the percent of blacks with permits grew 20% faster than for whites. Permits for Asians grew 29% faster than for whites."

Women who have been victimized as adults were more likely to own a gun, more likely to own more than one gun, and more likely to carry a gun for protection. According to Pew Research, women are slightly more likely to report owning a gun for protection (71% to 65%), but men report owning guns for more activities (hunting, sports shooting, etc) and men report owning more types of guns (shotguns and rifles rather than just a handgun) than women, so women are more likely to own handguns only for protection.

Jim Curcuruto, Director of Research and Market Development at the National Shooting Sports Foundation, said, of the increase in gun sales during the 2020 civil rights movement, "The highest overall firearm sales increase comes from Black men and women, who show a 58.2% increase in purchases during the first six months of 2020 versus the same period last year," As Bruce Tomlin, a Black gun owner, explained to NPR, "I just feel like in my viewpoint, every Black person in America, especially Black males, needs to have some type of protection with them as often as [they] can, because I think the political climate [is] getting to the point where it's just going to be a lot of violence coming our way. I just feel safer now having a gun. And I didn't always feel that way. I've never been the world's biggest fan of guns, but I just don't feel safe without one... I'd rather go to trial than go to the cemetery"
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Con 1

Concealed guns increase crime.

A 2018 study conducted by the National Bureau of Economic Research concluded, "There is not even the slightest hint in the data that RTC [right-to-carry] laws reduce violent crime. Indeed, the weight of the evidence from the panel data estimates as well as the synthetic control analysis best supports the view that the adoption of RTC laws substantially raises overall violent crime in the ten years after adoption." The authors found, "Ten years after the adoption of RTC laws, violent crime is estimated to be 13 [percent to] 15 percent higher than it would have been without the RTC law."

A 1995 study of five urban cities, published in the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, concluded that gun homicide rates increased "on average by 4.5 per 100,000 persons" following the enactment of "shall-issue" laws.

A May 2009 study found that "shall-issue" laws were associated with increased numbers of aggravated assaults between 1977 and 2006.

Former Los Angeles Police Department Chief Charlie Beck said, "I have seen far too much gun violence in my lifetime to think that more guns is a solution... a gun is more likely to be used against you than you use a gun in self-defense."
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Con 2

Carrying a concealed handgun increases the chances of a confrontation becoming lethal.

According to the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, "members of the public who carry guns risk escalating everyday disagreements into public shootouts, especially in places where disputes frequently occur-in bars, at sporting events, or in traffic."

For example, on Jan 13, 2014, a retired police officer with a legally concealed handgun shot and killed another man during an argument over text messaging in a movie theater.

John J. Donohue III, JD, Professor of Law at Stanford University explained, "For example, the Philando Castile case in St. Paul, Minnesota. [After he was stopped by police,] he immediately told the officer that he was a right-to-carry holder and had a gun, which you're advised to do. And then the officer shot at him seven times. It scares the hell out of people when they think someone has a gun. Obviously, that right-to-carry holder wasn't doing anything wrong, but he ended up getting killed anyway. When more people are carrying guns, things can get more heated. There are times in which the gun could be involved in a way that thwarts a crime, but for the same reason that the officer shot Castile, guns tend to escalate the situation."
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Con 3

The Second Amendment does not guarantee concealed carry.

The Second Amendment states: "a well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed."

There is no mention of concealed guns in the Constitution or Bill of Rights.

US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in the court's majority opinion in DC v. Heller: "Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited... the majority of the 19th-century courts to consider the question held that prohibitions on carrying concealed weapons were lawful under the Second Amendment."

In May 2014, the US Supreme Court declined to hear Drake v. Jerejian, a case challenging New Jersey's issuance of concealed weapons permits only to citizens who can prove a "justifiable need."

In 2016, the US Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal to a 9th Circuit ruling that stated, "Based on the overwhelming consensus of historical sources, we conclude that the protection of the Second Amendment - whatever the scope of that protection may be - simply does not extend to the carrying of concealed firearms in public by members of the general public."
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Con 4

Private citizens with little or no expert training jeopardize public safety.

Economics PhD student, Anna E. Kyriazis, found that switching from permitted carry to constitutional carry (no-permit carry), "increases the rate of people fatally shot by police by 5.2%. This effect is due to the fact that citizens considered unqualified under RTC can carry concealed weapons under PC, increasing the risk that police officers face when interacting
with the public."

The current trend in concealed carry laws is to move toward constitutional carry: 16 states have constitutional carry as of Dec. 2020.

When a permit is not required, or when permit laws are lax, crucial screenings, background checks, and gun safety training are not required.

When he vetoed a permitless carry law in 2017, Montana Governor Steve Bullock stated, "While I will fiercely defend the 2nd Amendment rights of our citizens, I cannot support an absurd concept that threatens the safety of our communities by not providing for the basic fundamentals of gun safety or mental health screening."

Mark Schauf, Police Chief of Baraboo, Wisconsin, said, "as police officers, we're required to have training before we get our weapons and a certain number of training hours throughout the year. If we have to be trained, it would only make sense that a person in public would want to be trained, as well."

Everytown for Gun Safety explains, "Permitless carry laws and legislation... often allow carry by irresponsible and dangerous people, such as violent criminals and weapons offenders, people who pose a safety risk, and teenagers. Permitless carry legislation is part of the NRA's broader agenda to weaken and repeal important gun safety measures, allowing more guns in public and undermining public safety."
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Did You Know?

1. Carrying a concealed handgun in public has been permitted in all 50 states since 2013, when Illinois became the last state to enact concealed carry legislation.

2. State laws on concealed carry can fall into four categories: no-issue, may-issue, shall-issue, and unrestricted (also called no permit or constitutional carry).

3. In 1989 the National Rifle Association (NRA) launched a nationwide campaign to increase the number of states with shall-issue laws. At the time nine states had such laws. By 2000, 30 states had shall-issue laws.

4. "There were 2.7 million concealed handgun permit holders in 1999, 4.6 million in 2007, 8 million in 2011, 11.1 million in 2014, and now 19.48 million in 2020," according to the Crime Prevention Research Center in Nov. 2020,

5. As of Nov. 2019, 16 states allowed carrying a concealed weapon on public college or university campuses and 23 states allow each college or university to make decisions on concealed carry on campus.

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Concealed Guns - Pros & Cons - ProCon.org

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Proponents of concealed guns say carrying deters crime. Opponents say carrying increases the chances of a confrontation becoming lethal.

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Lawmakers Debate Guns in Schools Proposals

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Lawmakers Debate Guns in Schools Proposals

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Open the PDF, Read it, ans Answer the following question in 3-5 sentences:
Why do some people think that arming school staff with guns will make students safer? Do you agree with them? To strengthen your argument use your observations and experiences, or information from any of your reading.

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Video Response with School Shootings Solutions

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Video Response with School Shootings Solutions

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Intro: Discuss the current situation we are in as it relates to school shootings.
Body: What is being done to addressees school shootings?
Closing: What are some actions that could help solve school shootings in the U.S.?

Take in consideration all of the articles that you have interactive with throughout this case study and provide a description of what you think could be done to address gun rights in schools. Be sure to include include examples and information that you received from the various resources.

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Did California’s Tough Gun Laws Prevent a Greater Tragedy?

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Did California’s Tough Gun Laws Prevent a Greater Tragedy?

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After YouTube shooting suspect Nasim Aghdam wounded three people at the company's campus in California, questions remain about where and when she bought the 9 millimeter Smith & Wesson semi-automatic handgun that she allegedly used, authorities said Tuesday.

But what is known is that California has some of the county's toughest gun-control laws and that it has tightened them after previous shootings. And along with its strict gun laws, it has among the lowest number of gun deaths per capita, 43rd among the 50 states.

The Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, which considers California a national model, ranks the state number one in the country for the strength of laws governing background checks, military-style weapons, large capacity magazines, permits for carrying concealed weapons and access to weapons by domestic abusers and children.

California was the first to enact extreme risk protection orders that give relatives or law enforcement the ability to petition a court to temporarily remove guns from people deemed dangerous. It prohibits people who have been convicted of violent misdemeanors and hate crimes from owning guns and next year, will require background checks for ammunition.

Aghdam, a 38-year-old San Diego resident, arrived at the YouTube campus in San Bruno Tuesday afternoon and shot three people before apparently killing herself, authorities said. She had a grudge against the company, claiming it discriminated against her videos, and she felt cheated out of revenue from video views, her family said. Authorities say they have no indication she was singling out anyone as she fired.

Not enough is yet known about Aghdam to say definitively whether California's tough laws prevented more casualties. The San Bruno police chief, Ed Barberini, did say on Wednesday that Aghdam possessed her handgun legally though he did not know where or when she bought it.

"We don't necessarily have enough facts to know which laws in particular may have come into play and how this tragedy may have unfolded differently in another state," said Ari Freilich, a staff attorney at the Giffords Law Center and director of California Legislative Affairs.

Gun Control Grades

But she would not have been able legally to buy an assault weapon or large capacity magazines, he noted. For example, AR-15 series weapons, which have been used in mass shootings across the country, are not legal unless they were owned by Aug. 16, 2000, and registered by Jan. 23, 2001, according to the website of the California Attorney General Xavier Becerra.

The state's gun laws have limitations though. California is bordered by states with much laxer gun laws, Nevada and Arizona in particular. Rates of gun violence rise in California after gun shows in Nevada, Freilich said.

And California has seen mass shooting during which assault weapons were used. Fourteen people were killed at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, California, in a 2015 terrorist attack when Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, opened fire on Farook's office holiday party. The couple were killed afterward in a shootout with police.

They were armed with two 9 millimeter handguns that Farook had bought legally and two .223-caliber rifles that a neighbor had bought, also legally, authorities said. Despite California's prohibition on assault rifles, the rifles were variants on the AR-15, authorities said.

Opponents to gun control measures argue the laws are ineffective because they are easily bypassed with the elimination of prohibited features on the guns. But after the killings in San Bernardino, California tightened its laws again, with new restrictions on semiautomatic rifles and a ban on all large-capacity ammunition magazines.

Gun owners and the National Rifle Association have challenged California's laws in the courts and one lawsuit has delayed the implementation of the magazine ban. Last year the NRA's state affiliate sued over the prohibition on the sale of semiautomatic rifles equipped with bullet-buttons that allow ammunition magazines to be replaced quickly. It argues that that the regulation criminalizes the possession of weapons used for self-defense or sports.

But in February, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear two cases involving California's gun laws - one calling for a 10-day waiting period and the other involving fees on gun transactions.

And Freilich noted that 25 years ago, California had the third highest rate of gun murders in the country. Now it is 25th, he said.

"California still has been able to make major progress," he said.

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Did California's Tough Gun Laws Prevent a Greater Tragedy?

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After YouTube shooting suspect Nasim Aghdam wounded three people at the company's campus in California, questions remain about where and when she bought the 9 millimeter Smith & Wesson semi-automatic handgun that she allegedly used, authorities said Tuesday. But what is known is that California has some of the county's toughest gun-control laws and that it has tightened them after previous shootings.

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Ten Arguments Against Gun Control — And Facts That Prove Them Wrong

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I remember where I was when the mass shooting at Columbine High School happened — the offices of the Daily Tar Heel Newspaper on the campus…

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6 Radical ways to tackle US school shootings...

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6 Radical ways to tackle US school shootings...

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After 17 people were killed in Florida, could these measures stop US school shootings?

1. Don't name the shooter

In January 2014, Dr Sherry Towers went to a meeting at Purdue University, Indiana. On the same day, elsewhere on campus, Cody Cousins shot dead Andrew Boldt, a fellow student.

After the killing, the meeting was cancelled. But Dr Towers - a statistician from Arizona State University - started thinking about shootings, and the relationship between them.

"It was the third school shooting I heard about in a 10-day period," she says. "And that seemed - even for the US - an unusually large number."

Dr Towers and her team got to work, and found that school shootings and mass killings had an average "contagious period" of 13 days.

That is - when one school shooting or mass killing happens, another becomes more likely.

Dr Towers does not want the media to ignore mass killings. "People have a right to know," she says.

And, as a scientist, she cannot prove that withholding the killer's name will reduce contagion. "It would be impossible [to prove] - there has never been a case where the killer wasn't named."

But she thinks that focusing on victims - rather than "lurid" details of the killer - could make shootings less likely.

"When I talk publicly, or to the media, I don't name the perpetrator unless there is a specific reason why," she says.

Dr Towers' research has been used by Alerrt, a team at Texas State University that studies "active shooter response". They have a campaign called Don't Name Them.

"A lot of shooters - not all of them - are driven by this desire for notoriety," says Dr Pete Blair from Alerrt. "If we know that's one of the motivations, why are you giving them the reward?"

Dr Blair doesn't want a ban on naming shooters. But he thinks the media should focus on "heroes, the community, and - where appropriate - the victims".

Some US journalists - such as CNN's Anderson Cooper - and websites now choose not to name mass killers.

2. Let teachers carry guns

The shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, in December 2012, was reported to police at 9.35am. Officers arrived less than four minutes later; within a minute, they heard the gunman shoot himself.

He had already killed 20 children and six adults inside the school.

"If schools' only solution is to rely on outside help, it will never get any better than we saw at Sandy Hook," says Joe Eaton.

Eaton is from the Buckeye Firearms Association, a gun-owners' group in Ohio. After Sandy Hook, they set up Faster - a programme that trains teachers to respond to mass shootings.

The programme includes first aid, moving through crowds, and firearms training - that is, how to kill a school gunman.

So far, Faster has trained 1,300 school staff, mostly on three-day courses. "Teachers, administrators, superintendents, bus drivers, even the lunch lady," says Eaton.

In the US, 10 states ban guns in schools, outright. Another eight allow them only in locked cars. But in the other 32 states, it is possible for teachers to carry guns, if the school allows it.

Faster has trained staff from 225 districts in 12 states. Another 200 to 400 will be trained this year.

"Inside of every school, there are certain teachers who will willingly run towards the sound of gunfire," says Eaton.

"The schools identify these people, and tell them: 'Whatever tool and training you're comfortable with, we're going to give it to you'."

Eaton accepts that it's sad for teachers to need guns.

"When they started their teaching career, they never would have imagined carrying firearms to protect kids - or having their schools ask them to," he says.

"But I bet if you ask every airline pilot, they would have answered the same way until 9/11 happened [ some pilots in the US carry guns].

"Sandy Hook was the teachers' 9/11."

Is it time for US teachers to carry guns?

3. Two doors in every classroom

When the gunman attacked Stoneman Douglas High School last week, David Hogg took shelter in a cooking classroom.

While hiding in the dark, the 17-year-old noticed the L-shaped room had two doors. "If he [the gunman] came in one," he thought, "we could go out the other."

His thinking - and his logic - is supported by experts.

"Attacks with high casualty counts [tend to have] people trapped in a small area, unable to protect themselves," says Dr Pete Blair from Alerrt.

"Simple things, like designing classrooms with another exit, could help. It might not necessarily stop the attack from happening - although it could - but it might mitigate the damage done."

He also suggests having locks on every door. "I'm not big on trying to legislate things, but it's certainly something that would make sense," he says.

4. Remove guns from people 'in crisis'

In May 2014, Elliot Rodger - a London-born 22-year-old - killed six people in Isla Vista, California. The local sheriff called him " severely mentally disturbed".

Four months later, Californian lawmakers approved Gun Violence Restraining Orders. They allow family members, housemates, or police, to ask a judge to remove guns from people "in crisis".

In California, there are three types of order - two of them last 21 days, while another lasts a year. In the first year, 86 orders were issued.

Federal law already stops people with mental health histories buying guns - but the bar is lower.

To buy a gun from a licensed dealer in the US, the purchaser must pass a background check. If they have been judged "mentally defective", or committed to a mental institution, they fail.

Between November 1998 and January 2018, there were 33,569 denials for mental reasons - 2% of the total number of denials.

The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence wants California's scheme to be introduced nationwide. So far, similar schemes have been approved in two more states - Oregon and Washington.

A school shooting comes to 'paradise'

Trump pushes for ban on modified guns

5. Airport-style security in schools

Two days after the shooting in Florida, a lawyer in Corbin, Kentucky, posted a video on Facebook.

Shane Romines offered $20,000 (£14,000) to buy five metal detectors - one for each school in the area.

He also offered another $5,000 for tasers, firearms, and training, and called on other community leaders to contribute. Within three days, $75,000 had been pledged.

Some US schools, mostly in big cities, already have metal detectors. In 2014, around 8.7% of high schools used "random metal detector checks".

But school security expert Ken Trump doubts whether metal detectors will stop school shootings. "It may meet an emotional need," he says. "It's not going to meet a practical need."

He points out that schools are often open all day, every day.

"So you'd have to run a metal detector operation 24/7," says Trump. "Or someone could come for a basketball game in the evening, stash the weapons in a locker, then come back the next morning."

Trump has worked in school security for 30 years. "I'm a parent, I get it," he says. "But there is no magic wand. This is complex."

6. Repeal the Second Amendment

Gun-owners' rights are protected by the US Constitution. The Second Amendment, adopted in 1791, gives Americans the right to "keep and bear arms".

The Constitution, though, can be altered.

Amendments can be proposed by Congress - when two-thirds of both houses are in favour - or by two-thirds of the states. The amendment must then be approved by three-quarters of states.

For example, the Eighteenth Amendment prohibited alcohol. The Twenty-First Amendment repealed it.

Since the Florida shootings, some commentators have called for the Second Amendment to be repealed.

"Most gun-control legislation is ineffective when most Americans have a guaranteed constitutional right to purchase deadly weaponry in nearly unlimited quantities," wrote Bret Stephens in the New York Times.

But it isn't just the national constitution that gives Americans gun rights. Forty-four state constitutions also give people the right to bear arms.

And - even if the Second Amendment were repealed - it wouldn't mean that guns were banned. It would simply remove the constitutional right to "keep and bear arms".

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Six radical ways to tackle US school shootings

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After 17 people were killed in Florida, could these measures stop US school shootings? In January 2014, Dr Sherry Towers went to a meeting at Purdue University, Indiana. On the same day, elsewhere on campus, Cody Cousins shot dead Andrew Boldt, a fellow student. After the killing, the meeting was cancelled.

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Armed to the Teeth Gun Ownership in America

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Armed to the Teeth Gun Ownership in America

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Here you will add 2 pieces of evidence for each of the following statements. You will get to determine whether the evidence will support or go against the statement.

Statement 1: More guns lead to more violence.
Ex.  Regions with higher gun ownership rates have a greater prevalence of gun homicides.

Statement 2:  Gun ownership is an individual right guaranteed by the Second Amendment.

Statement 3: Carrying a concealed weapon increases your safety.

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Donald Trump has said he will consider a proposal to arm school teachers in an attempt to prevent mass shootings, a move certain to prove fiercely divisive.

The US president, holding a listening session at the White House with survivors of last week's Florida school shooting and others affected by gun violence, claimed that allowing airline pilots to carry and conceal guns had demonstrated the measure could be a success.

"It only works when you have people very adept at using firearms, of which you have many," Trump said during an emotionally searing session on Wednesday that, extraordinarily, was broadcast live on national television. "It would be teachers and coaches."

Referring to Aaron Feis, a football coach who used his body as a shield to protect a student during the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school in Parkland, the president continued: "If the coach had a firearm in his locker when he ran at this guy - that coach was very brave, saved a lot of lives, I suspect.

Julia Cordover, the student body president at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School wipes away tears during a listening session hosted by Donald Trump at the White House. Photograph: Xinhua / Barcroft Images

"But if he had a firearm, he wouldn't have had to run, he would have shot him, and that would have been the end of it. This would only obviously be for people who are very adept at handling a gun. It's called concealed carry, where a teacher would have a concealed gun on them. They'd go for special training and they would be there and you would no longer have a gun-free zone. Gun-free zone to a maniac, because they're all cowards, a gun-free zone is: 'Let's go in and let's attack, because bullets aren't coming back at us'."

Trump added: "An attack has lasted, on average, about three minutes. It takes five to eight minutes for responders, for the police to come in, so the attack is over. If you had a teacher who was adept at firearms, they could very well end the attack very quickly."

Trump says arming teachers with concealed weapons could prevent school massacres - video

Knowledge of this would act as a deterrent to a would-be attacker, Trump claimed. "You know, a lot of people don't understand that airline pilots now, a lot of them carry guns, and I have to say that things have changed a lot. People aren't attacking the way they would routinely attack and maybe you would have the same situation in schools."

The president asked for a show of hands in the room over the proposal: some were in favour, others were against. "We can understand both sides and certainly it's controversial," he acknowledged, promising to discuss it seriously.

It emerged after the shooting at Parkland that there was an armed security guard on site but he did not get the chance to engage the gunman, Nikolas Cruz, on the sprawling campus. In May 2016, during the presidential election, Trump tweeted: "Crooked Hillary [Clinton] said that I want guns brought into the school classroom. Wrong!"

Donald Trump with notes during a listening session with high school students and teachers at the White House on Wednesday. Photograph: Carolyn Kaster/AP

Nicole Hockley, whose six-year-old son Dylan died at Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, spoke out against the idea of arming teachers. "It's not personally something that I support. Rather than arming them with a firearm, I would rather arm them with the knowledge of how to prevent these acts from happening in the first place," she told Trump.

Safety assessments programmes and interventions for troubled children are vital, she added. "Let's talk about prevention. There is so much that we can do to help people before it reaches that point, and I urge you please stay focused on that as well. It is the gun, it's the person behind the gun and it's about helping people before they ever reach that point."

Earlier during the session in the state dining room, where some speakers were tearful but composed as they recalled their experiences, Hockley also issued a challenge to the president. "This is not difficult," she told him. "These deaths are preventable. And I implore you: consider your own children. You don't want to be me. No parent does."

During the meeting Trump also asserted that he would be "very strong" on background checks for gun buyers as well as mental health issues. He sat in the middle of a semi-circle listening intently as six survivors of last week's shooting and bereaved parents from Parkland, Columbine, and Sandy Hook took turns to address him.

Crooked Hillary said that I want guns brought into the school classroom. Wrong!
- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 22, 2016

Sam Zeif, 18, a Parkland student whose text messages with his brother during last week's shooting went viral, fought back tears as he told Trump: "I turned 18 the day after. Woke up to the news that my best friend was gone. I don't understand why I can still go in a store and buy a weapon of war, an AR. I was reading today that a person 20 years old walked into a store and bought an AR-15 in five minutes with an expired ID. How is it that easy to buy this type of weapon? How are we not stopping this after Columbine, after Sandy Hook, sitting with a mother that lost her son? It's still happening."

Andrew Pollack, whose 18-year-old daughter Meadow was killed at Stoneman Douglas, reflected the candid anger of many when he took the microphone. "We're here because my daughter has no voice - she was murdered last week, shot nine times," he said. "How many schools, how many children have to get shot? It stops here, with this administration and me."

Pollack, his voice rising with raw emotion, added: "It should have been one school shooting, and we should have fixed it, and I'm pissed because my daughter, I'm not going to see again."

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Trump's solution to school shootings: arm teachers with guns

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'It is the gun, it's the person behind the gun and it's about helping people before they ever reach that point,' said a mother whose son died at Sandy Hook elementary

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Discussion Questions (Please respond with your own post):

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Discussion Questions (Please respond with your own post):

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1. What are "arms?
2. What does it mean to "bear" arms? Does it mean you can take "arms anywhere?
3. Does the 2nd Amendment only apply to militias? Do you only have a right to bear arms if you are a member of the militia?
4. What does "shall not be infringed" mean? Does it mean that we aren't allowed to limit people's right to bear arms?
5. Which "people" have a 2nd Amendment right?
6. How does the prefatory clause affect the operative clause? Does the order of the clauses matter or does the amendment mean the same thing no matter what?

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Gun Control in America: The History, The Issues and One Controversial Cartoon

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Gun Control in America: The History, The Issues and One Controversial Cartoon

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This link includes an interactive timeline of events, an Associated Press interactive fact sheet and a satirical cartoon...

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Efforts to tighten firearms regulations often resumes in the wake of horrific mass shootings, but nearly every recent attempt has been shot down.

Case in point: On June 2016, a lone gunman, wielding a semi-automatic rifle and handgun terrorized a gay night club in Orlando, killing 49 people and wounding scores more. The attack marks the deadliest mass shooting (committed by a single person)in U.S. history.

Eight days later, Senate Democrats tried to push through a set of legislation to expand background checks to gun shows and Internet sales, and to prevent anyone on the U.S. terror watch list from purchasing guns. The relatively modest measures were quickly scrapped by the Republican-controlled Senate. 2013 legislation proposed in the months after a gunman killed 20 young children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. suffered a similar fate.

As a result, U.S. gun laws remain exceptionally lenient in comparison to regulations in just about every other industrialized country in the world. Meanwhile, the gun death rate in the U.S. far outpaces that of any other wealthy Western nation.

As the Above the Noise video at top explains, the debate over access to guns is only likely to grow more thorny and complicated with the emergence and spread of new manufacturing technologies -- like 3-D printing -- that give more people the opportunity to create their own homemade weapons that are not yet regulated under existing federal gun laws.

For more on the prickly history of federal firearms laws, scroll through this interactive timeline.

( Click here for full-screen mode)

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3-D Printed Guns: The Latest Chapter in the Loaded History of Gun Control [VIDEO]

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Efforts to tighten firearms regulations often resumes in the wake of horrific mass shootings, but nearly every recent attempt has been shot down. Case in point: On June 2016, a lone gunman, wielding a semi-automatic rifle and handgun terrorized a gay night club in Orlando, killing 49 people and wounding scores more.

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Student's Opinions on School Shooting Videos

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Student's Opinions on School Shooting Videos

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Daily Video

PBS social media activity: In addition to walkouts, what are ways to express your solutions to gun violence? Share @NewsHourExtra using #StudentGunReformIdeas

Middle and high school students have been sharing their thoughts on gun violence with the NewsHour since the school shooting in Parkland, Florida. One thing all students agree on: Change is possible and action must be taken.

Read the NewsHour opinion piece written by teenagers across the country: How teens want to solve America's school shooting problem"

While a variety of thoughts about gun violence and solutions to school shootings were represented in the story, "One thing all students agree on: Change is possible and action must be taken."
Answer the question below in full sentences. You may base your response on examples from the article, ideas you have learned about elsewhere or your own solutions. Essential question: What are some actions that could help solve school shootings in the U.S.?

Have students read aloud their responses directly (avoid paraphrasing) in small groups of three to four students. Each member of the group should write down one idea that impacted them in some way from each of their peers' responses. Then have students share these impact statements with each other after everyone has read their piece.

More voices - different medium. A good media literacy practice is to learn about an issue through a variety of forms. Watch one of the student-produced videos via NewsHour's Student Reporting Labs below. If time permits, watch them all!

What was your experience like watching the videos as compared to reading the NewsHour article?

What medium did you prefer and why?

Activity 2:

Watch the NewsHour video below on student walkouts. Do you think student walkouts will help to make change? Would you consider participating in a walkout? Why or why not?

PBS social media activity: In addition to walkouts, what are ways to express your solutions to gun violence? Share @NewsHourExtra using #StudentGunReformIdeas

Teachers and students: Constructive feedback on this lesson is welcome. Please email newshourextra@gmail.com.

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Ways to share your students' solutions to gun violence | PBS NewsHour Extra

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Middle and high school students have been sharing their thoughts on gun violence with the NewsHour since the school shooting in Parkland, Florida. One thing all students agree on: Change is possible and action must be taken.

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This link provides a state-by-state look at gun homicides in 2010. Includes an interactive map.

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In 2011, the highest gun homicide rate (per 100,000 residents) in the nation was, ironically, in the city where the nation's gun control laws are decided: Washington, D.C. The rate there was 12.4 (actually down from 2010). A close second was Louisiana, with a rate of 10, followed by Mississippi, with 7.4.

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Teachers get 16in Bats to Fight Shooters 

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Teachers get 16in Bats to Fight Shooters 

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A Pennsylvanian school district has given its teachers baseball bats in the fight against school shooters.

All 500 teachers of Millcreek School District near Erie got a 16in (41cm) bat in the wake of the Parkland, Florida high school attack in February.

Though the bats are largely symbolic, Superintendent William Hall said, they are there as a "last resort".

"Unfortunately, we're in a day and age where one might need to use them to protect ourselves and our kids."

The superintendent said the aim was to have a "consistent tool" for every teacher in every classroom.

In March, another Pennsylvanian school district armed its teachers with buckets of rocks as a response to any potential shooter.

'Spike in school threats' after Florida shooting

America's gun culture in 10 charts

Officer 'failed to confront' school killer

How does it work?

Teachers received the bats after a training day on how to respond to shooters. They will be locked up in classrooms.

Mr Hall said this was part of the district's shooting response plan, known by the acronym Trojan.

This stands for Threat assessment, Run, Obstruct and barricade, Join forces, Attack, and Never give up.

An online survey also asked whether teachers in the district should be armed if the state passed laws allowing it.

"It was about 70% to 30% that people would favour that," Mr Hall said, "but we're not really actively planning that right now."

Six radical ways to tackle US school shootings

Is it time for US teachers to carry guns?

Millcreek Education Association president Jon Cacchione said this was a tool if teachers had "nothing else".

"Part of the formula now is to fight back, and so I think the bats that were provided for the staff were symbolic of that."

The baseball bats reportedly cost the school district $1,800 (£1,270).

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Teachers get 16in bats to fight shooters

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A Pennsylvanian school district has given its teachers baseball bats in the fight against school shooters. All 500 teachers of Millcreek School District near Erie got a 16in (41cm) bat in the wake of the Parkland, Florida high school attack in February.

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The Loose Laws and Loopholes of Federal Regulations

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The Loose Laws and Loopholes of Federal Regulations

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This link includes videos...

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When it comes to national gun laws, the United States is about as far from united as it gets. Beyond the loose set of federal regulations that everyone must follow, there are 50 unique state laws and even more individual county and city rules. It's resulted in a confusing tapestry of gun regulations that vary drastically depending on where you happen to be. There's variation in anything from background checks and handgun permit requirements to the sale of semi-automatic weapons and waiting periods. Even rules on allowing firearms on college campuses, in bars, or even in churches can differ across certain state lines.

Federal Gun Law

Federal regulations apply to everyone. But due largely to the intense lobbying efforts and political influence of the gun industry and gun rights groups like the National Rifle Association, these laws have been significantly stripped over the last two decades (see our gun control timeline); they're now far and away the loosest (and most vague) of any industrialized country in the world. States must meet the basic requirements, and then have the option to enact some stricter regulations ... if they choose to do so.

Federal law prohibits buying or transferring firearms across state lines, owning machine guns and other certain high capacity devices, and bringing guns onto school zones ("except as authorized"). Under the law, you also can't buy or possess a gun if you've been convicted of domestic assault or other serious crimes, dishonorably discharged from the military, or if you have a restraining order against you. The prohibition also includes fugitives, drug users, illegal immigrants, and those deemed mentally ill or institutionalized.

And just as Congress has increasingly weakened federal gun regulations over the last two decades, it has also stripped the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms of much of its power to adequately enforce those laws, and even to compile comprehensive data on gun ownership rates and crimes. The bottom line is that federal gun laws, as they currently stand, are pretty lightweight. And that means it's up to individual states to step it up if they want stricter regulations.

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The Loose Laws and Loopholes of Federal Gun Regulations

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When it comes to national gun laws, the United States is about as far from united as it gets. Beyond the loose set of federal regulations that everyone must follow, there are 50 unique state laws and even more individual county and city rules.

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Bank of America to Stop Lending Money to Companies Making Military Grade Weapons for Non-Military Use

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Bank of America to Stop Lending Money to Companies Making Military Grade Weapons for Non-Military Use

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Bank of America announced on Tuesday that they plan to stop lending money to companies that make assault-style guns used for non-military purposes.

During an interview on Bloomberg television, Bank of America Vice Chairman Anne Finucane said, "It's not our intent to underwrite or finance military-style firearms on a go-forth basis."

According to Finucane, the firm has had "intense conversations over the last few months" with those kinds of gun manufacturers to let them know "it's our intention not to finance these military-style firearms for civilian use."

According to CNBC, the bank is a lender to Vista Outdoor, Remington and Sturm Ruger.

The move comes as part of a national movement addressing gun control that was put into motion after a gunman opened fire on a Florida high school killing 17 people.
Mary Stringini is a Digital Reporter for ABC Action News. Follow her on Twitter @MaryWFTS.

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Bank of America to stop lending money to military-style weapons makers

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Bank of America announced on Tuesday that they plan to stop lending money to companies that make assault-style guns used for non-military purposes. During an interview on Bloomberg television, Bank of America Vice Chairman Anne Finucane said, "It's not our intent to underwrite or finance military-style firearms on a go-forth basis."

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Are States With Tough Gun Laws Actually Safer

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Are States With Tough Gun Laws Actually Safer

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This link provides a side-by-side comparison of state gun laws and corresponding gun crime rates, includes interactive chart, videos, and maps...

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The Center points to 2010 statistics showing that seven out of 10 states with the strictest regulations also had that lowest gun homicide rates.

But gun rights advocates opposed to tighter regulations argue that this correlation is inconclusive and misleading. They commonly counter that stricter regulations don't do anything to prevent criminals from getting ahold of guns - they simply prevent law abiding citizens from being able to protect themselves. Many also point to states like Maine, which has some of the loosest regulations in the country (it received an F grade by gun control groups, but also has among the lowest gun homicide rates in the country). On the contrary, they argue, the strict gun laws in cities like Chicago and Washington D.C. have failed to prevent those rising homicide rates in those places.

"The gun laws in Chicago only restrict the law-abiding citizens and they've essentially made the citizens prey," Richard A. Pearson, executive director of the Illinois State Rifle Association told the NY Times.

California vs. South Dakota: the toughest and loosest gun laws

Despite its relatively low rate of gun homicides, South Dakota got smacked with an F grade by the Center to Prevent Gun Violence, which identified it as the state with the nation's weakest gun laws. Here's how the two states compare:.

California: toughest gun laws

Requires all gun sales (private or otherwise) to be processed through a licensed dealer, requiring a background check

Requires gun dealers to obtain a state license (rather than just a federal one)

Bans most assault weapons and 50 caliber rifles, and prohibits the sale or transfer of large capacity ammunition magazines

Requires handgun purchasers to obtain a license, after passing a written test

Regulates its gun shows

Limits handgun purchases to one per person per month

Imposes a ten-day waiting period prior to the sale or transfer of a firearm

Maintains permanent records of firearm sales

Gives local law enforcement discretion to deny a license to carry a concealed weapon

Gives local governments authority to regulate firearms and ammunition (although the state legislature has expressly removed this authority in certain areas).

South Dakota: loosest gun laws

Does not require a background checks for private sales

Repealed its 48-hour waiting period for handgun purchases

Does not require gun dealers to obtain a state license

Does not regulate the transfer or possession of assault weapons, 50 caliber rifles, or large capacity ammunition magazines

Does not require gun owners to obtain a license, register their firearms, or report lost or stolen firearms

Does not require the reporting of mentally ill individuals to the federal database used for firearm purchaser background checks

Does not limit the number of firearms that may be purchased at one time

Does not regulate unsafe handguns

Does not allow local governments to regulate firearms

Does not have local law enforcement discretion to deny a concealed handgun permit

99 ways states have loosened gun laws

Mother Jones magazine tracked 99 state laws passed since 2009 that have made guns easier to own and carry in public, and harder for the government to track. According to the report, these laws were pushed through by the National Rifle Association and allies in state capitols. More than two-thirds of them were passed by Republican-controlled legislatures, though often with bipartisan support.

Mother Jones highlighted some of the more striking laws it came across:

Bullets and booze: In Missouri, law-abiding citizens can carry a gun while intoxicated and even fire it if "acting in self-defense."

Child-safety lock off: In Kansas, permit holders can carry concealed weapons inside K-12 schools and at school-sponsored activities.

Short arm of the law: In Utah, a person under felony indictment can buy a gun, and a person charged with a violent crime may be able to retain a concealed weapon permit. Nebraskans who've pled guilty to a violent crime can get a permit to carry a gun.

Sweet Jesus! In Louisiana, permit holders can carry concealed weapons inside houses of worship.

Without a trace: Virginia not only repealed a law requiring handgun vendors to submit sales records, but the state also ordered the destruction of all such previous records.

The big players in the debate

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Are States With Tough Gun Laws Actually Safer?

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The Center points to 2010 statistics showing that seven out of 10 states with the strictest regulations also had that lowest gun homicide rates. But gun rights advocates opposed to tighter regulations argue that this correlation is inconclusive and misleading.

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U.S. Gun Homicides: Visualizing the Numbers

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U.S. Gun Homicides: Visualizing the Numbers

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This link provides key statistics on the high rate of gun deaths in the U.S. . Includes interactive charts, videos, and maps.

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Compared to the world's other high-income nations, the United States isn't unusually violent; we're just unusually lethal.

That's according to David Hemenway, director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center. He argues there is a direct connection between the U.S. being leaps and bounds ahead of any other industrialized country in terms of overall gun death rates -- and the fact that we have the highest gun-ownership rates in the world

"We are a nation which does not have more crime or more violence," Hemenway said during a forum on gun violence held shortly after the elementary school shooting in Newtown, Conn in December 2012. "We are an average nation in terms of assault, robbery and (non-firearms) homicides."

What distinguishes the U.S., he notes, is our rate of gun violence: "The United States has a very horrific gun problem ... 85 people a day dying from guns from all sorts of injury." He adds: "Compared to the other developed countries, we are just doing terribly."

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U.S. Gun Homicides: Visualizing the Numbers

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Compared to the world's other high-income nations, the United States isn't unusually violent; we're just unusually lethal. That's according to David Hemenway, director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center. He argues there is a direct connection between the U.S.

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Cody Wilson doesn't look dangerous. There's a slight gap between his two front teeth, a bit of an underbite. Around his middle, the beginnings of a paunch, visible through his fitted grey denim. Clutching an iPhone in one hand, a cup of strong black coffee in the other, he's not exactly menacing - until he looks at you.

His eyes are searching, hard, darting around the West Hollywood cafe. Brown eyes that seem a touch nervous, and tired.

Wilson has been labeled one of the most dangerous people in the world - twice. He quotes philosophers like Nietzsche and Foucault and calls himself a crypto-anarchist, a digital radical. He's hung with Julian Assange, appeared on Showtime, Vice and documentaries like Deep Web. He likes to be the bad guy.

The 28-year-old is the face of open-source 3D gun design, an online movement of enthusiasts who use 3D printers and machining tools to build their own homemade weapons - ones that can shoot very real, and very deadly bullets.

Wilson isn't some gun loon on an online soapbox; he is a well-educated, well-spoken, very argumentative young man who's as responsible for creating his press portrayal as the journalists who've written about him. "I'm now more and more of a self-caricature," he tells me. "I've had to become a fanatic over the past three years just to move the ball another three yards."

In 2013, while a law student at the University of Texas, the Arkansas native posted free blueprints for a plastic pistol called the Liberator. They were downloaded over 100,000 times before the state department ordered him to shut down, although the design remains available on file-sharing sites. The government alleges that Wilson violated arms export statutes, even though Wilson says there is no law that says publishing gun design online is criminal.

"All I tried to do in law school was print a pistol and put it on the internet," he says. "Now I'm on a ride I can't get off of."

Wilson wants to circumvent the big gun makers and give people their own way to build weapons, a position which has made him a major voice in gun-web rights and, in a counterintuitive twist, in the free speech movement.

To do that, his company, Defense Distributed, offers the sale of two very controversial - and legal - items: the firing mechanism and aluminum spine of what's called a Ghost Gun, a build-it-at-home way to make your own firearm (without serial numbers), and Ghost Gunners, a milling tool that allows any DIY-er to build lower receivers at home.

The sale and shipping of these "blanks" are unregulated, and there are tens of thousands in California alone. That's because it's not illegal to make your own gun, but under 1968's Gun Control Act, it's illegal to make a firearm for sale. But since these are unfinished pieces, operators like Wilson remain in a legal loophole - even though these tools have been used in mass shootings before.

"I'm not making guns for you," Wilson says, "I'm shipping the possibility to make it for yourself."

With that rationale, he's used the first amendment to argue the second amendment, spending three years - and over $1m - suing the state department.

On 6 June, oral arguments begin in New Orleans's fifth circuit court of appeals, where he's essentially pushing the government to explain why sharing online information - even if it's the instructions to build a weapon - is a crime, and if it equates to arms exportation.

When I ask if people should be scared of him, his lips curl. "I represent the destruction of commonsense gun control," he says. "They should be very afraid. My ideas are dangerous to them because they live in a managed world. I prefer to be a kind of horseman coming down. It sends our enemies into despair and it brings joy to our allies."

Who's "they"? "The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, the Bloomberg people, New Yorkers Against Gun Violence, anybody who writes for Salon, the professional American left, the New York Times," Wilson replies. The list goes on and on, and he even throws the NRA under the bus, as "simply another kind of gun control group that protects the interests of American gun manufacturers".

To fully understand Wilson's battle, we need to pull back. While still in school in 2012, Wilson founded Defense Distributed as a not-forprofit organization. A year later is when things came to a head. That's when he first posted the Liberator files, dropped out of school and sued the government to determine if publishing technical data is against the law, and whether file sharing is akin to exporting firearms.

"That's all we're fighting about in court ... The theory is that for the first time ever, publication to the internet, apart from generating data, amounts to an export of technical data related to defense services."

Battling the US government necessitates deep pockets, and in order to fund years of litigation, Defense Distributed began manufacturing, selling and shipping Ghost Gunners, the aforementioned milling tool producing lower receivers, and the lower receivers themselves.

Wilson developed the Ghost Gunner so he could fund his lawsuit to the tune of over $3m in sales in the past two years, a war chest which also accounts for a civil suit pending in Florida over fraud (against a manufacturer who Wilson claims never completed a contract).

The case has caught the attention of major free speech buffs, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Floyd Abrams, who argued on behalf of the New York Times in the Pentagon papers case (and won), characterizes it as a very serious first amendment play. Margot Kaminski, an assistant law professor at Moritz College, agrees, adding that the fact that these instructions are already in the public domain makes it tough for the state "to put the cat back in the bag".

If he does win, Wilson says his first publishing attempt will seem like a splash in the kiddie pool. He's set up a system to publish what he calls an "inaugural event", where he plans to "dump tens of thousands of dollars into liberating the specs of classic battle rifles", he says.

"I have developers for anything and everything, some of the best talent in the world. I know some of the world's best hackers. It's all ready to go. I have interested stakeholders, a large network that care about what I do ... I'm not the NRA. I'm the internet."

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Cody Wilson with a model of the Liberator. Photograph: Cody Wilson

The worst part about Cody Wilson is that he's likable in person, and it's easy to want to root for him as the underdog. But then he'll say something so off-the-wall - "gun safety is using both hands", say - and you crash back to reality.

He seems to get off on the negative attention but then, a breath later, he admits that the stress has taken a toll, his life chipping away like the shell of an egg.

"I've become this narrow, strange version of myself," he says. "I feel tired. It's hard to have the same sense of humor I had in the beginning. I'm completely out of shape, I don't eat well, I don't sleep that much. I get acute stress all the time, and I get it in my wrist, a tingle in my hand. When the state department smashed me, I was sick. Doctors said it was mono, but I was in bed for weeks. My family is worried about me. They recognize that I'm in a lot of trouble and they just worry. They didn't want this for me."

But he hasn't stopped. He's toyed with BitCoin startups, recently soft-launched a Kickstarter for a guns marketplace called GunSpring, and unveiled the Ghost Gunner 2 for home-manufacturing of ARs.

And here's where his pro-gun freedom fighter persona begins to clash. The finished weapons his products help produce do lack serial numbers, but it's not like anyone can buy them. His purchasers are stringently vetted by Defense Distributed via government agency list aggregates. That means thorough background checks.

"I constantly run backscreens of our customers and our depositors against the grid, which are updated daily," he says. "There's tons of law I have to deal with already, even though I try to position us as a radical libertarian company. I have to certify that [clients] are US persons, not US citizens, but US persons. That means do you have a green card, what kind of visa do you have?"

Wilson pays a couple of hundred a month for this compliance - not to ensure his wares don't get into the wrong hands, but to keep the feds happy. "I do exactly what I'm required by law, and nothing else," he declares. "We've shipped almost 2,000 machines at this point. We're responsible for at least 5,000 to 10,000 new ARs that exist. At least."

He says it proudly, like a child that's just taken a magnifying glass to an ant colony. Either he fails to see the pain his creations can bring, or doesn't care.

When I posit the potential, Wilson furrows his brow and barks: "Show me. Prove it. It's very unlikely someone's going to buy a Ghost Gunner, make a gun and then go commit a crime. It's never happened. A third of our entire market is upper-middle-class people in California that have expendable income and enjoy building handguns."

He claims his designs have not been used to kill, but if not his, surely his competitors'.

Last year, a murder-suicide in Stanford, California was committed with homemade handguns crafted from lower receivers. In 2012, before Wilson began Defense Distributed, an AR-15 lower receiver - a product Wilson now retails for $65 - was used in the December 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary shooting. Wilson didn't sell that item, but it's essentially the same one he does sell now. In 2013, John Zawahri slaughtered five in Santa Monica using a home-assembled AR. Zawahri was unable to buy a gun due to his mental health issues, but he built his own with a lower receiver he finished milling using a drill press and other tools - a design horribly reminiscent of Wilson's.

There's no way to determine how many - if any - have been killed by Wilson's toys. But even he admits: "It's an eventuality. Not necessarily a likelihood, but the longer I'm around ..." Isn't one tragedy one too many?

"No," says Wilson. "It does not register on my meter. Whatsoever."

Mitch Berman, who taught Wilson at law school, remembers him fondly, but "didn't get the impression that his commitment was deeply philosophical, but rather something he realized was doable, and wanted to be the guy to do it.

"I thought it was a bad idea. Being able to print out a gun at home seems to allow for a potentially large loophole for commonsense gun preservation."

He hasn't spoken to Wilson in five years, but shared the same concerns as I had. "If you build enough guns, they're going to be used in ways to make some shudder. He assured me he thought about it, understood it would happen, and was prepared to live with it." Berman pauses, measures his words. "It would be a rare cat that actually doesn't feel substantial pains during that circumstance. I hope it doesn't destroy his life and career. He's still a young guy."

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The design for a 3D printable gun that Cody Wilson, right, was ordered to take down from the internet. Photograph: Ilana Panich-Linsman/New York Times / Redux / eyevine

Looking ahead, Wilson is keeping a close eye on the presidential race. A Republican in office means the second amendment - and assault weapons - are safe. And a Democrat probably means an all-out ban on them. Depending on who's in the White House, change may come swiftly.

"If Hillary Clinton is elected president, I become a much more important person in the gun world. It's conceivable, especially under four or eight years of Hillary, that I become the biggest way that people make ARs. Who knows?" If and when he gets closure in his case, Cody Wilson will win and the web will be flooded with instructions to make more weapons.

If Wilson and others really cared about America's doctrines of freedom, liberty and justice as much as they do their commitment to their guns, they'd ensure failsafes like biometric locks or even serial numbers if that would placate naysayers, and make products safer. Instead, it seems to be a my-way-or-nothing, pry-my-gun-from-my-cold-dead-fingers mentality, with no room for debate.

After coffee, we walk around my neighborhood and I invite Wilson over to my apartment. We talk politics and literature, and he tells me about his book, slated for October release with Simon & Schuster, aptly titled Come And Take It.

We share a beer and I show him a copy of The Anarchist Cookbook. An original - the 1960s handbook for subversives. Wilson flips through the frayed, yellow pages, recipes for mayhem, revenge, drugs.

"Did you try any of this?" he asks. I shake my head. No. Some doors are better left unopened.
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Cody Wilson: the man who wants Americans to print their own 3D guns

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Cody Wilson doesn't look dangerous. There's a slight gap between his two front teeth, a bit of an underbite. Around his middle, the beginnings of a paunch, visible through his fitted grey denim. Clutching an iPhone in one hand, a cup of strong black coffee in the other, he's not exactly menacing - until he looks at you.

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America's unique gun violence problem, explained in 16 maps and charts

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In the developed world, these levels of gun violence are a uniquely American problem. Here's why.

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The federal background check system is supposed to keep guns out of the hands of people who shouldn't have access to such deadly weapons. But the federal system has long been mired by gaps and loopholes - and according to a new report by Joshua Eaton for ThinkProgress, one of those loopholes appears to be getting worse.

Under federal law, the great majority of checks are completed with few problems. But a small few are deemed inconclusive, at which point the FBI can ask for three business days to complete a check. If the FBI doesn't complete those background checks within three business days - maybe it can't get the right information in time, or maybe a report takes too long to fax to the FBI - then the would-be buyer is allowed to purchase a gun despite not completing a background check.

According to ThinkProgress, the FBI failed to complete background checks within three business days in about 3.59 percent of the more than 8.6 million gun background checks in 2017. This percentage is slowly creeping up: It was 2.76 percent in 2014, 3.02 percent in 2015, and 3.24 percent in 2016.

It's not immediately clear why the problem is getting worse. Typically, the incomplete checks are a result of the background check system being underresourced - so the FBI doesn't have the staff to get to all background checks in time - and states failing to send a buyer's full records over to the FBI in time or even at all.

It's not necessarily the case that someone bought a gun after all of these incomplete checks. After the three days, it's up to dealers to decide whether they want to sell the weapon. Buyers may also change their minds about purchasing the gun.

The FBI also has up to three months to complete the background check after the three days expire. Federal agents can confiscate a gun if it turns out someone should not have been allowed to buy it.

But the gap does, in general, create more opportunities for people to buy guns without a completed background check - and that's led to horrible consequences in the past.

In 2015, Dylann Roof should have failed a background check to buy a handgun because he had previously admitted to illegally possessing a controlled substance. But the FBI examiner failed to complete the check in time - and Roof bought his gun. A few months later, he shot and killed nine people at a predominantly black church in Charleston, South Carolina.

The horrific chain of events has earned this gap in gun control laws the name "Charleston loophole."

Despite a push from advocates, Congress has failed to close the loophole.

The National Rifle Association, meanwhile, has called the loophole "a critical safety valve in federal law" that "ensures that Americans' rights to acquire firearms are not arbitrarily denied because of bureaucratic delays, inefficiencies, or mistakes in identity."

America's gun laws are already the weakest in the developed world, even when they work as planned. That helps explain why America also has the highest levels of gun violence in the developed world, since the research shows there's a close correlation between more guns and more gun deaths. These growing loopholes only exacerbate those problems.

For more on America's gun problem, read Vox's explainer.

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America's gun laws are already weak - and a growing loophole is making them even weaker

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The federal background check system is supposed to keep guns out of the hands of people who shouldn't have access to such deadly weapons. But the federal system has long been mired by gaps and loopholes - and according to a new report by Joshua Eaton for ThinkProgress, one of those loopholes appears to be getting worse.

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As gun control advocates call for tougher state and federal laws, much of the debate centers on the effectiveness of regulation designed to minimize deaths caused by firearms.

Proponents of gun control argue that common sense calls for tougher laws to stop gun violence. Gun rights advocates counter by noting that gun laws don't stop someone intent on breaking those laws from killing people.

So, do gun laws work?

While research on the subject is limited, the answer seems to be that states with stricter gun regulation have fewer firearms deaths - in some cases dramatically fewer - than those that don't.

But while the correlation is clear, there is little hard evidence of cause and effect.

The relationship between gun laws and firearms deaths is compelling. In states like Alabama,. Alaska and Louisiana, where guns are lightly regulated, the rate of deaths by firearms (per 100,000 people) is more than four times higher than in New York, Connecticut, Hawaii or Massachusetts, which have some of the strictest gun laws in the country.

The data come from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which tracks firearms deaths, and a project at the Boston University School of Public Health, which tracks dozens of different provisions of gun laws in the 50 states.

Other research has also found a clear connection between stricter state gun laws and a lower rate of firearms-related deaths.

In 2013, researchers at Boston Children's Hospital and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health found that states with more gun laws had fewer gun-related deaths. The impact was seen for overall deaths, as well as for specific categories such as homicides and suicides.

But while the researchers confirmed that states with tougher gun laws have lower gun-related death rates, the study did not explain whether gun laws were the reason for the difference.

"As our study could not determine cause-and-effect relationships, further studies are necessary to define the nature of this association," they wrote.

While the cause and effect may seem intuitively obvious, there are apparently other factors behind the difference in gun-related deaths from one state to another.

In Maine, for example, where there are relatively few gun laws on the books, there were a little more than 8.3 gun-related deaths per 100,000. But Louisiana, with roughly the same number of gun laws, saw a firearms death rate of 21.3 in 2016.

On the other hand, the firearms-related death rate in Maine, with just 12 gun-related provisions, was roughly the same as in California, with more than 100 separate regulations governing gun ownership and use.

Researchers have speculated on possible explanations. Separate research, for example, has shown that gun-related suicides are higher in rural areas. Rates of gun deaths in rural states may also be higher because delays in getting medical treatment could lead to higher mortality rates from gun-related injuries.

While further study into the causes of gun violence may be needed, researchers won't get much government support unless Congress votes to overturn a 1996 law that barred support of firearms research by federal agencies.

The firearms research ban was introduced by Rep. Jay Dickey, R-Ark., on behalf of the National Rifle Association, after the CDC published a study which concluded that people who kept guns in their homes faced a nearly threefold greater risk of homicide and a nearly fivefold greater risk of suicide. Since then, the so-called Dickey amendment has brought federal funding of firearms research to a halt.

It remains to be seen whether the recent outcry over the latest school shooting in Parkland, Florida, generates enough political momentum to overturn the funding ban.

But before he died last year, Dickey apparently had a change of heart. In 2012, he co-authored a Washington Post editorial with Mark Rosenberg, the head of the CDC when the Dickey amendment was passed, calling for more scientific research to prevent firearm injuries and deaths.

"We were on opposite sides of the heated battle 16 years ago, but we are in strong agreement now that scientific research should be conducted into preventing firearm injuries and that ways to prevent firearm deaths can be found without encroaching on the rights of legitimate gun owners," they wrote.

WATCH: NRA partners under pressure

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States with strict gun laws have fewer firearms deaths. Here's how your state stacks up

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As gun control advocates call for tougher state and federal laws, much of the debate centers on the effectiveness of regulation designed to minimize deaths caused by firearms. Proponents of gun control argue that common sense calls for tougher laws to stop gun violence.

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States with Most and Least Gun Violence 

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States with Most and Least Gun Violence 

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The latest mass shooting at a Parkland, Fla., high school reignited the debate over gun ownership rights and further highlighted the role that mental illness plays in these tragic episodes of gun violence in the United States.

While grabbing the most headlines, gun violence is not limited to mass shootings. Gun fatalities include homicides, accidents, and suicides. There were 38,658 firearm deaths in the United States in 2016. Of those fatalities, 22,938 were suicides and 14,415 were homicides.
More:'Shame on you!' Florida shooting survivors confront lawmakers at Capitol in Tallahassee
No part of the country has been spared mass shootings. The 10 deadliest incidents have occurred in Texas, California, Florida, Virginia, Connecticut, Oklahoma and Nevada.

When adjusted for the population size, five of the deadliest 10 states are in the South, and six are among the 10 poorest U.S. states. In all but five states, more than half of all firearm fatalities were suicides.

24/7 Wall St. reviewed data on gun violence by state based on the latest information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which tracks the number of gun-related deaths in each state.

50. Massachusetts

49. Rhode Island

48. New York
More: States where Americans pay the least (and most) in taxes
47. Hawaii

46. Connecticut

45. New Jersey

44. Minnesota

43. California
More: Least livable: Worst county, by state, to live in
42. Maine

41. Washington

40. Nebraska

39. Iowa

38. New Hampshire

37. Delaware
More: Financial security: Best (and worst) states to grow old in
36. Vermont

35. Wisconsin

34. Illinois

33. Oregon

32. Maryland
More: Geographic disparity: States with the best (and worst) schools
31. Pennsylvania

30. North Dakota

29. Virginia

28. Texas

27. Michigan
More: 25 best counties in the U.S. to live in based on education, poverty and life expectancy
26. Florida

25. Ohio

24. Utah

23. Kansas

22. South Dakota
More: U.S. economy: A rundown of the poorest county in every state
21. North Carolina

20. Colorado

19. Idaho

18. Indiana

17. Georgia
More: Economic inequality: The worst states for Hispanics and Latinos
16. Arizona

15. Nevada

14. Tennessee

13. Kentucky

12. West Virginia
More: Workplace fatalities: 25 most dangerous jobs in America
11. Wyoming

10. South Carolina

9. Arkansas

8. New Mexico

7. Missouri

6. Montana

5. Oklahoma

4. Mississippi

3. Louisiana

2. Alabama

1. Alaska

Detailed findings and methodology
24/7 Wall Street is a USA TODAY content partner offering financial news and commentary. Its content is produced independently of USA TODAY.
Democrats have criticized the restrictions enacted in 1996 following intense lobbying by groups such as the National Rifle Association. Republicans have been able to thwart Democrats' attempts to restore federal dollars to fund gun violence research. CDC researchers stopped working on gun-related projects, and federal funding evaporated.

While the Trump administration has indicated in the wake of the Florida shooting that it may be shifting position on funding CDC research of gun violence, studying gun violence in the United States remains relatively difficult.

Some associations can be made with data that are available. For example, even though rapidly firing weapons such as the AR-15 have been the weapon of choice in recent mass shootings, the majority of gun-related fatalities involve handguns.

The similarities of states with the highest firearm-related death rates can also be telling. For example, the states with the highest gun death rates are often the states with relatively loose gun restrictions.

Thirty-eight states and the District of Columbia require a permit to carry a handgun. Of the 12 states that allow individuals to carry concealed weapons (CCW) in public without a permit - Alaska, Arizona, Idaho, Kansas, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia and Wyoming - eight report above-average firearm death rates.

Over the past three decades, many states have loosened laws limiting concealed carry weapons permits and now have more permissive CCW permitting systems.

With the notable exception of Alaska, such states also tend to be among the nation's poorest. Of the 33 states with firearm death rates that exceed the national incidence of 11.73 deaths per 100,000 people, 19 have poverty rates that exceed the national rate of 14.0%.

Financial losses are listed by the CDC and other groups as among the key risk factors for suicide. Concentrated poverty may therefore help explain high suicide death rates, and in turn the high firearm death rates, in many of the states on this list.

To determine the states with the most gun violence, 24/7 Wall St. examined 2016 firearm-related deaths data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. We also considered violent crime rates from the Federal Bureau of Investigation's 2016 Uniform Crime Report. From the U.S. Census Bureau we reviewed poverty rates by state for 2016. Information on firearm policies for each state are from the National Rifle Association's Institute for Legislative Action.

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States with the most (and least) gun violence. See where your state stacks up.

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The latest mass shooting at a Parkland, Fla., high school reignited the debate over gun ownership rights and further highlighted the role that mental illness plays in these tragic episodes of gun violence in the United States. While grabbing the most headlines, gun violence is not limited to mass shootings.

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1. The NRA is different than the founding fathers.
2. It has changed by people having a hold of guns protected by the NRA.
3. The interpretation is the 2nd Amendment was changed and convinced by people.

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1. a military force that is raised from the civil population to supplement a regular army in an emergency.
2. actively break the terms of a law, agreement
3. serving as an introduction
4. functioning; having effect

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1. Weapons and ammunition
2. This means it is unconstitutional to disable the right to keep and bear arms to a class of people.
3.  So since the amendment itself mentions the maintenance of “well regulated” militias as the purpose of the right to keep and bear arms.
4. It means that militias were as capable of having a gun by their side even before and should have the right to own one for a better reason. Primarily, American citizens aren't supposed to, due to the change of the NRA, it changed so now they have the right to do so.
5. Those people are American citizens and militias, of course.
6. It matters because oh how the order of what the 2nd Amendment changed, and which one is primary and secondary.

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No, only the certain fact because US citizens can have a right to have a gun before legally, and militias too at these moments.

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1. California has the most homicides of 1467.
2. California is the holy land. It has by far the most stringent gun control laws. On the other hand, if one believes that guns deter crime, than Arizona is the place to go. In that state, there's nothing you can't do with a gun.
3. Eight states currently allow most adults to carry a concealed weapon in public, including Maine and Kansas, which passed laws permitting concealed carry in 2015.
4.  The gun law loophole, or the private sale loophole, the term refers to a gap in laws that address what types of sales and transfers of firearms require records and or background checks
5. The gun ownership compared to other nations are very more strict, knowing there have been many killed with the in the state.
6. California has the strictest gun laws, and Louisiana is the loosest.
7. The ruling struck down the ban on constitutional grounds, saying it flew in the face of the constitutional right to bear arms.

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More guns lead to more violence. For what other reason would it be for? You simply could harm someone with a gun, no whatsoever. For example, in the first article, it says," PhD. Lott calculated that 1,570 murders, 4,177 rapes, 60,000 aggravated assaults, and 12,000 robberies could have been prevented between 1977 and 1992 if concealed carry had been legal in every US state during that time period." This means that all these crimes would have been prevented if firearms weren't available to Americans. In the same article, it says," Violent criminals will always have guns. Rather than being victims, concealed handgun carriers have a sense of safety and security, especially when going outside at night or in dangerous areas." This means that guns will always have the power of evil in the wrong hands.

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As of teachers having the right to have an armed weapon, I think ti is all unsafe from any point of view because of how some teachers get mad with their students, you never know what may happen. On the other hand, when there is a school shootings, it is another side of an argument.