That's OK, Pat. I wouldn't expect you to.

Fiesty....I don't know. I heard a report that said for every murder, there were six that were stopped because of a weapon.

Pat.....I can show you Australia where gun control worked to stop death by guns, but didn't work to stop killings as homicides, rapes, and assaults increased significantly.

Feisty, read this - it's a little background on Adam and his parents. At first, the school and his parents' main concern was protecting Adam from bullies. Something went terribly terribly wrong as he grew older.

She shouldn't have had guns in that house, but I don't know if she broke any laws. And that's a problem.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/9750422/Connecticut-school-shooting-Adam-Lanza-was-assigned-psychologist.html

Perhaps NOT, Feisty. Let research be your friend.

Soooooooo....... you agree that it's CRAZY PEOPLE, not guns, that commit mass murders?

Think Progress:

Rick Snyder plans to veto legislation allowing concealed weapons in public schools, according to bill sponsor Sen. Mike Green, R-Mayville.

The bill allowing highly trained gun owners to carry concealed weapons inside public schools was delivered to Snyder’s desk Tuesday.

“He’s not going to sign it,” Green told The Detroit News.

Carney said that the president was additionally willing to consider limiting the capacity of ammunition magazines and closing a loophole allowing individuals to purchase firearms at gun shows without a background check.

How about eliminating that pesky loophole that allows gangbangers to buy guns on the street also without any background check?

It's obvious that Obama intends to target only the law abiding and ignore the criminal element.

BTW, this past weekend when we were all mourning this tragedy, there were something like 50 shootings on the streets of Chicago, and not so much as a peep from the media about them.

There are far more studies showing that stricter gun control DOES NOT reduce crime rates than instances where lax gun control increase crime rates. Been studied hundreds of times and is the reason why you rarely hear any of the politicians discuss it in recent elections- Its because no evidence suggests that stricter measures are successful and politicians (scum) don't want to sacrifice an election by fighting a pointless battle.

Illinois has strict gun laws = some of the highest gun crime rates in the country.
Vermont has lax gun laws = some of the lowest gun crime rates in the country.

In case your bored and question my facts, I will leave you with this. The most popular gun used in crime since it has been tracked (early 1900's) is actually a model of gun NEVER discussed. .38 / .357 Short barreled revolvers.

Only holds 6 rounds - no magazine (or clip as the news idiots call them)-

The mother is responsible - and idiot people in general. I WOULD be in favor of stricter rules REQUIRING guns be kept in safes. People are more loose with guns than kitchen cleaner under the kitchen sink.

Does he want the ban on us or the cartel, of which he let the cartel get and kill hundreds of mexicans and at least one of ours?? Just asking.

Way to go Fisty! If you ask me... the only one that is bat @!$%# crazy around here is YOU!

yep! Red Dawn is a special case indeed.

Hey Noid, you seem to be worried about a Bushmaster and what they could be used for in self defense. Have you ever heard 'against enemies foreign and DOMESTIC' or is that not a possible scenario in Libtopia (USSR)?

I looked at the four main groups that work in this policy space: the pro-gun control Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and Mayors Against Illegal Guns and the anti-gun control National Rifle Association and Gun Owners of America.

Last year, the NRA spent $2,905,000 lobbying Congress. The Brady Campaign spent $40,000. Michael Bloomberg's pro-gun-control Mayors Against Illegal Guns spent $200,000 and the anti-gun control Gun Owners of America spent $1,307,996.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Anti-Gun-Control-Groups-Sp-by-Zaid-Jilani-120726-948.html

Dear God - Why did you allow numerous gun killings to take place on church properties?

reply from God

.........

Pat from Boston, MA.. You wouldn't know what Oscar is talking about because you live in a police state and your not allowed to defend yourself, your only allowed to become a victim!!! I'm originally from MA and would never live there again!!!

Criminals do not care about the law, so passing stricter laws will not prevent criminals from breaking the law they were going to break in the first place. Does a bank robber stop at stop signs when running from the cops.

Also, these laws would not have prevented this anyway. Most of the firing was done with hand guns. In China, shool children were just attacked with knives. Are we going to ban those too.

I personally don't own guns of any type. But I just have to ask you how many laws were violated before the assassin even set foot on the school property? Tell me how those laws protected anyone? The rush to create more law does nothing to keep us safe. It is only the act of politicians trying to capitalize on the misfortune of others. They rush to create more law and yet ignore enforcing the laws we have on the books. If this was not true why is a family haveing to bring suit over "Fast and Furious" for the wrongful death of their son?

We as citizens have given up much freedom in the pursuit of security...yet we are no more secure than we were before the new laws and agencies were created. I just point this out because the truth is we live in a dangerous world and no amount of law, insurance, security, or government action will change that. Remember on 9/11 over 2000 people died due to box cutters and airplanes. Today we are no more secure except by the fact that our government has assassinated a good portion of the key people who planned and gave support to the terrorists. So what does that teach us? I guess we should all remember the most dangerous and destructive power on earth today is our government left unchecked by its citizens. So this is part of the reason our founding fathers created the 2nd Amendment. We are due to repeat the mistakes of the past if we ignore history on this earth. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely...don't remember who said that but it is still true today.

Our only safety is in changed lives...ones that are willing like this principal and mother who stood in the face of evil and did not blink...we need more leaders with that mindset.

@ Pat

This addresses your ?

...Did you know.....• A 1997 high school shooting in Pearl, Miss., was halted by the school's vice principal after he retrieved the Colt .45 he kept in his truck.
• A 1998 middle school shooting ended when a man living next door heard gunfire and apprehended the shooter with his shotgun.
• A 2002 terrorist attack at a...

...n Israeli school was quickly stopped by an armed teacher and a school guard.
• A 2002 law school shooting in Grundy, Va., came to an abrupt conclusion when students carrying firearms confronted the shooter.
• A 2007 mall shooting in Ogden, Utah, ended when an armed off-duty police officer intervened.
• A 2009 workplace shooting in Houston, Texas, was halted by two coworkers who carried concealed handguns.
• A 2012 church shooting in Aurora, Colo., was stopped by a member of the congregation carrying a gun.
• At the recent mall shooting in Portland, Ore., the gunman took his own life minutes after being confronted by a shopper carrying a concealed weapon. 2500 times last year alone legal gun owners stopped violent crime when confronted with it long before any police assistance ...

I know the media likes to keep bringing up the 1994 "Assault Weapons Ban", but they can't seem to stop lying about what it actually did. It DID NOT ban AR-15s or any "assault rifle". It banned the sale of semi-automatic rifles with a confusing list of features it could not have in combination and "high capacity" (anything over 10) magazines made after the date the law took affect.

It specifically banned the combination of a bayonet lug, collapsable stock, and threaded muzzle on semi-automatic rifles with external magazines. AR-15's and AK's were still very much available, they just didn't have any of the above features. You could still buy and have 20, 30, 40+ round magazines, they just couldn't be sold from new production to the public.

I will agree to limiting access to "assault weapons" and 30+ round magazines only if we expand our national and state mental health spending, including new facilities for the care of people with mental problems that may pose a concern to themselves or others...so they can be separated from regular society. We must address this national pandemic of mental illness once and for all...not just sweep it under the rug in the guise of an attack on Amendment Two. Riders... increased security at schools ( we keep our beloved money in vaults with 18 inch thick steel doors, and our children behind glass), Insurance companies...time to ante up and treat mental illness like a sucking chest wound, not a yearly dental cleaning (turn loose of that green, for the children). Let's see how serious we are.

With all due respect, Feisty Redhead, this shooter (I will not give him the satisfaction of mentioning his name!) was indeed an unbalanced wack job, to say the least. Intelligence and sanity are two different aspects of a person (Adolf Hitler was intelligent, but misguided and mentally off the sanity charts). The shooter was indeed insane, even though he was intelligent, because no sane person would do such a thing to 20 children. His brand of insanity, however, was different than most because his overwhelming attribute was evil in its purest form. And this kind of insanely evil person needs to simply be eliminated, not captured and made into a victim of his past by some in the media.

@Pat: I am a bit ashamed that I come from Boston now because you are making the rest of us look poorly. Closed minded thoughts and expression will only be met with resistance and counter arguments. That being said, when you are being held up by a thug with an illegal firearm, you can scream at him/her that it is illegal to have the weapon, hows that? Then you can stomp your feet and scream that you are a victim and how everyone needs to focus on you...sort of like Feisty always does....if something is countered against her she stomps her feet and uses exclamation points to ensure everyone pays attention to her. Oxygen thieves, goodness!

Stricter background checks would not help at all because there are evil people out there that have not done bad yet. there are bad out there that have firearms illegally and just like when they banned alcohol, the black market will explode with sales. Use common sense, stop drinking the juice and dont open your mouth and complain when your president destroys whats left of this country.

CA, 20 shredded 6 & 7 year olds enemies of whom? we all know what semi-auto assault weapons are for, along with the high capacity magazines--why of course killing, kill as many and as fast as possible.

No one has answere this question: how would the 2nd amend. be infringed upon by controlling/baning semi-auto combat style weapons along with the over-loaded magazines--how would this infringe? There is really only one use for these weapons and that is killing. Come on folks, adherents justify ownership and explain infringement.

Lil, God was in the schools during John W. Gacy's and Ted Bundy's tenure, where was God then?

Why doesn't the pres shed a tear for all the kids his drones kill. Is it because our military refers to them as 'bugsplats'?

Criminals do not care about the law, so passing stricter laws will not prevent criminals from breaking the law they were going to break in the first place. Does a bank robber stop at stop signs when running from the cops.

"wolphi", if that is your standard we ought to strike all laws and go for full-on anarchy. No more stop signs, stoplights, speed limits, pedestrian crosswalks, etc because they don't stop lawbreakers.

Hell, I'm going to the nearest mattress store and start cutting off the tags!!!

Common Sense, most of here in MA feel the way I do.

Get the guns off the streets or haven't you been paying attention to what I said?

This is about victims' rights, not gun owner's rights.

Baddog,

What is the democrats solution? An assault rifle ban? That will do nothing since anyone who already owns one will be able to keep that weapon. What is your take on what happened in China last week? Nut case went into a school with a knife and slashed 20 kids. If someone who is hell bent on hurting or killing people they will do it with or with out a gun.

I think it's funny that a bunch of religious people took offense to lil michelle's comment about God not being allowed in schools. To me it was a political satyr of the school system's rules. It didn't seem like a literal reflection on what God is capable of. Obviously if you believe in Him then you would know He is everywhere.

...Did you know.....

• A 1997 high school shooting in Pearl, Miss., was halted by the school's vice principal after he retrieved the Colt .45 he kept in his truck.
• A 1998 middle school shooting ended when a man living next door heard gunfire and apprehended the shooter with his shotgun.

Read the actual stories, in both incidents above, the perps were confronted as they were in the process of leaving the scene of the crimes.

The world is in need of more responsible people. People that will stand up for themselves and those that are around them. People that will provide for themselves and try to help others. People that will use every tool available to them (that includes guns until they are taken away) to advance the intrest of themselves and the general public. We need more real men and women to stand up and help out. America is turning into a society that is blaming everyone else and not looking at the real problem. People do not take responsibility for themselves. Then they look to blame everyone else. Blame the rich, blame the parents, blame the government, blame George Bush, blame anyone but the one that is accountable. America will not improve until the people of America improve. So are you working on improving yourself and those around you?

Guns don't kill people. People do. If any of these mentally ill people set in their mind that they are going to wreak havoc on other people, they are going to kill. Whether it be with a gun, a knife, a pen, a pencil, or like Oklahoma bombings, simple fertalizer and fuel. I seem to remember a day when people killed a bunch of Americans just because and all they used were box cutters and airplanes. So when are we going to make all of the previous things I just stated illegal? Lots of crimes and deaths are prevented daily by legal law abiding citizens who carry a weapon. But instead of trying to solve the problem, the pompus ignorant idiots in the white house wait until an incident like this happens and want to ban guns and hold all Americans responsible instead of holding the individual criminals responsible for what they do. In the long run, there are now more guns and ammo owned by private citizens in general than ever. So what if they ban assault rifles for a little while. That just means you cant buy any more. By the time that takes effect it wont matter because theres already millions out there. You will NEVER get Americans to turn there guns in and if these ignorant wastes of skin keep pushing all thats gonna happen in the long run is another revolutionary war within our country. Because people like myself believe in America and our given rights and under NO circumstanses will I give them up to our "Government" who says they are out for our best interest. If you cant see that thats just a crock of crap then you are 100% legally blind, oblivious, or very uneducated because they couldnt care less about me or you. All that matters is that their pockets get stuffed full of money.

I have a couple guns of my own and never once have they crawled out of my closet and shot anyone. Although I do agree with some of the measures proposed such as reducing the clip capacity of weapons people can purchase, why does anyone need a gun that can shoot 100 rounds without a reload - I also think we need to look at the people who purchase these guns. I can understand someone owning a few guns because different guns serve different purposes; you don't hunt ducks with the same type of gun you hunt deer with. But when you start seeing people with 30 or 40 guns, then you really start to wonder about them. I would definitely be in favor of psychological evaluations done on people before they purchase a gun as well as pointed polygraph tests asking questions such as "Do you intend to intentionally use a gun to harm or kill anyone not in self defense?" I'm willing to have such measures taken because I know I could pass them. It's the people who fear such tests because they fear the results who oppose them. Even so, it must also be noted that such measures can never stop everyone who is mentally unstable from getting their hands on guns - this shooter in Connecticut is proof of that. If it wasn't his mother's guns, he probably knew neighbors or friends who owned guns.

rmoonrock,

Spot on. Right away with the shooting last week the media rushes to find out what made this little punk snap.

@ tylerscribble

Thanks, apparantly you saw the irony, it was a statement.

Of course God is everywhere, even when you "Ban" him, as our school system has...

I'm having a hard time with the comment "I still wonder why the mother thought it was a good idea to put assault weapons into her mentally disturbed sons hands..?" Has it come out that he was diagnosed with some sort of mental illness? If not, why would you make the aforementioned comment? Should all mothers be able to predict the behaviors of their children? If your comment was referring to the diagnosis of Asperger's, it is offensive to categorize an Autism spectrum disorder as a mental illness. So, what exactly did you mean?

Pat Boston, you ARE AN IDIOT. IT IS NOT THE FLIPPIN' GUNS. God I get tired of anti gun people with absolutely no sense. Instead of addressing the problem, you just saying, guns guns guns. One issue is the mental health system is trash. Also, a shop should be allowed to check mental health records before selling a gun. Also, Last time I checked, most murder occurs in cities where control control is tight. This is because people who are criminals(you know, the people who doesn't care about laws) are using guns so take away guns from innocent people, and you have open targets. If a teacher was carrying, maybe just maybe lives would have been saved... i know, maybe, but it gives them a fighting chance. But libtards really need to stop blaming an OBJECT for MURDER and hold PEOPLE accountable.

Feisty Redhead Roselle, IL

Ok lets put this to a vote right here.

Along with other proposal on Gun Control. Add this one

If you have children in school, Would you like to see at least 3 school staff members that were trained to handle a gun and had passed a training course to be able to access a locked gun for self defense. Or leave it the way it is? like for yes see my next post for no

TheKhan,

Dont they already do background checks? I dont own any guns so I am simply asking. I thought that was required by law.

here is the No vote

These attacks are not about guns. They are about crazy people. The majority of people I know own guns and not one of them has ever killed or injured another human being. But with or without guns (using homemade bombs, knives, hammers, etc. ) crazy people are attacking and killing human beings. The largest mass murder in the US was in the early 1900s and the guy used homemade bombs to kill over 50 school children. Are you going to ban household cleaning supplies??

Do the research - ALMOST EVERY SINGLE INCIDENT OF MASS MURDER INVOLVED SOMEONE ON PSYCH MEDS. Until you people wake up to that fact and stop the drugging of America by Big Pharma and the APA, this will never stop - I don't care how many gun laws you pass. And for the record, do you really think someone who is insane will be stopped by your law???

Well I'm certainly not replying on God's behalf.

For truth in advertising purposes, I'm not a gun owner, and consequently not a member of the NRA.

And I do believe that it is, as has already been done here, fairly easy to cite examples where someone with a gun has stopped a crime from being committed.

People certainly have the right to own guns for hunting, for personal protection, for competitive shooting, and maybe a few more other legitimate reasons that I simply can't think of at this moment.

Where I fall off the onion cart is I do not believe any of those legitimate reasons require weapons, clips, magazines, etc. of the type/design (call them what you will, I'm not into the semantics here) used to kill the innocents in Newtown.

My feeling is if you have a need, desire, whatever to use those types of weapons then you'd probably make a good, and should, volunteer for US Military service.

Also, please don't bother citing the 2nd Amendment as reason for a citizen to own that type of weaponry:

See: http://nbcpolitics.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/18/15977143-gun-control-offers-no-cure-all-in-america?threadId=3631757&commentId=72715867#c72715867

and: http://nbcpolitics.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/18/15977143-gun-control-offers-no-cure-all-in-america?threadId=3631757&commentId=72718889#c72718889

"Guns don't kill people, people kill people." No doubt. But people (crazy or not) do so a lot more efficiently with crazy weaponry such as that used in Newton.

STOPPED from someone having a weapon to defend themself.

Hmmm...

Perhaps because the number is so miniscule..?

Pull your head out long enough to get some facts:

There are approximately two million defensive gun uses (DGU's) per year by law abiding citizens. That was one of the findings in a national survey conducted by Gary Kleck, a Florida State University criminologist in 1993. Prior to Dr. Kleck's survey, thirteen other surveys indicated a range of between 800,000 to 2.5 million DGU's annually. However these surveys each had their flaws which prompted Dr. Kleck to conduct his own study specifically tailored to estimate the number of DGU's annually.

Subsequent to Kleck's study, the Department of Justice sponsored a survey in 1994 titled, Guns in America: National Survey on Private Ownership and Use of Firearms (text, PDF). Using a smaller sample size than Kleck's, this survey estimated 1.5 million DGU's annually.

http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcdguse.html

Funny how liberals are all for killing them when they are being born, long before they reach age six ... it's called "partial birth abortion".

Old numbers, but one thing you can glean from this information:  The majority of the time a firearm was used in self-defense, the victim never had to fire a single shot.

http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/ascii/hvfsdaft.txt

About three-fourths of the victims who used firearms for
self-defense did so during a crime of violence, 1987-92 

                      Average annual number of victimizations
                      in which victims used firearms to defend
                      themselves or their property
                      ________________________________________
                                    Attacked       Threatened
                      Total         offender         offender
                      ________________________________________
  All crimes          82,500         30,600           51,900
Total violent crime   62,200         25,500           36,700

   With injury        12,100          7,300            4,900
   Without injury     50,000         18,200           31,800

Theft, burglary,
motor vehicle theft   20,300          5,100           15,200

Note:  Detail may not add to total because of rounding.  Includes
victimizations in which offenders were unarmed.  Excludes
homicides.

*In most cases victims who used firearms to defend themselves or
their property were confronted by offenders who were either unarmed
or armed with weapons other than firearms.  On average between 1987
and 1992, about 35% (or 22,000 per year) of the violent crime
victims defending themselves with a firearm faced an offender who
also had a firearm.  (Because the NCVS collects victimization data
on police officers, its estimates of the use of firearms for
self-defense are likely to include police use of firearms.
Questionnaire revisions introduced in January 1993 will permit
separate consideration of police and civilian firearm cases.)  

Offenders shot at victims in 17% of handgun crimes, 1987-92

                     Percent
                     _______

Shot at victim         16.6%
Hit victim              3.0
Missed victim          13.6
Nongunshot injury       1.6
No physical injury     12.0

Didn't shoot at victim 83.4%
Other attack/attempt   19.9
Verb. threat of attack 15.4
Weapon present         46.8
Other threat             .8
Unknown action           .5

Oscar + Pig + Red: (Tell if you need more or individual cases)

Cases in which guns saved lives

Specific examples are hard to find in the
mainstream media because biased reporters and editors
don't want to spread the idea that armed self-defense in one's home is legal and
effective.

Defensive Gun Use
Statistics. According to the National Self Defense Survey conducted by
Florida State University criminologists in 1994, the rate of Defensive Gun Uses
can be projected nationwide to approximately 2.5 million per year — one
Defensive Gun Use every 13 seconds. Among 15.7% of gun defenders interviewed
nationwide during The National Self Defense Survey, the defender believed that
someone "almost certainly" would have died had the gun not been used for
protection — a life saved by a privately held gun about once every
1.3 minutes.

Guns save more lives
than they take; prevent more injuries than they inflict. Guns [are]
used 2.5 million times a year in self-defense. Law-abiding citizens use guns to
defend themselves against criminals as many as 2.5 million times every year — or
about 6,850 times a day. This means that each year, firearms are used more than
80 times more often to protect the lives of honest citizens than to take lives.
Of the 2.5 million times citizens use their guns to defend themselves every
year, the overwhelming majority merely brandish their gun or fire a warning shot
to scare off their attackers. Less than 8% of the time, a citizen will kill or
wound his/her attacker.

Guns
Used in Self-defense. According to the authors of Cato's recently
released study on how often guns are used by citizens to prevent crime, "tens of
thousands of crimes are prevented each year by ordinary citizens with guns." In
a study of more than 5,000 news reports over an eight-year period, Clayton
Cramer and David Burnett showed that the mere presence of an armed citizen
thwarts many crimes, even beyond those that are reported by the police and
subsequently printed in the newspaper.

How often
do Americans use guns for defensive purposes? Criminologist and
researcher Gary Kleck, using his own commissioned phone surveys and number
extrapolation, estimates that 2.5 million Americans use guns for defensive
purposes each year. He further found that of those who had used guns
defensively, one in six believed someone would have been dead if they had not
resorted to their defensive use of firearms.

Same story, much older
article:
How Often Are Firearms
Used in Self-Defense? There are approximately two million defensive gun
uses per year by law abiding citizens. That was one of the findings in a
national survey conducted by Gary Kleck, a Florida State University
criminologist in 1993.

Same story again:
Simple
metal propulsion: According to a 1993 survey conducted by Florida State
University criminologist Gary Kleck, approximately 2 million law-abiding
citizens per year use guns to resist crimes.

Be
prepared for evil. Regardless of whether we can fathom the evil and
carnage that some rabid monsters do, we must be prepared and ready to respond to
evil at a moment's notice. ... [S]adly, another lunatic will commit more mass
carnage — maybe not tomorrow, next week or even next year. But it will happen
again, just as it did at Luby's cafeteria in Texas, at Virginia Tech, at a
McDonald's in San Diego, at Columbine High School in Colorado and at a shopping
mall in Omaha.

Colorado
Shooting and Gun Control. [Scroll down] As a matter of fact, Gun
Owners of America, at gunowners.org, cites statistics indicating guns are used
2.5 million times a year in self-defense, or around 80 times a day
(other statistics estimate this number could range as low as 1.5 million, but
either number is a lot!). This includes 200,000 women a year using guns
to defend themselves against sexual abuse. As a matter of fact, as of 2008,
armed citizens killed more violent bad guys than the police (1,527
vs. 606).

The
Truth About Guns. [Scroll down] Are Guns Useful for Self-Defense? As
it turns out, they are. According to research by renowned Florida State
University criminologist Gary Kleck, guns are used between 800,000 and
2.5 million times every year in self-defense. A study by John Lott and David
Mustard found that handguns appear to help women more than men. While murder
rates drop when either sex carries more guns, the effect is especially
pronounced when women carry.

Allen-Omaha ...

As a 'true' Believer in Christ, I take offense to your ignorance, because your same Bible declares the following attributes of God: Omniscient, omnipresent, all knowing, all powerful...

You either believe it or you don't. A Believer's Body IS the Temple of God. Everywhere a Believer, there He is also. Get off the keyboard and get back to some basics.

Thank you. Me too. For those that keep bringing up that little Mike Huckabee snippet ... why don't you wander on over to the parents of the children that died and tell them that is why YOU and your ex-wanna-be-candidate think this happened.

jim-145544

Funny how liberals are all for killing them when they are being born, long before they reach age six ... it's called "partial birth abortion".

No we don't and your post is DISGUSTING as usual. To put that on the same thread as gun control because of what happened in Conn just shows how LOW you will go to antagonize.

Baddog40: Just for your enlightenment, allow me to re-post a comment I made as a Conservative who is against the abortion to which you refer:

Personally, I happen to like assault weapons. Those are what I trained on and what I've become comfortable with. HOWEVER, this country has too many wack jobs in it to allow such needless weaponry in the hands of people who can go into a school and kill babies.....6 & 7 year olds!!!!! My God! How can anyone do such a thing to a child??? I am a conservative who has never been pro-gun control. But I, like most of this country, am heart sick of hearing the screams of parents who lose their children to this maddness. I can't even watch the NEWS anymore without getting depressed over this evil. The time for a ban on assault weapons, whose only purpose is to kill or maim people, is here.....Now!

If we want to protect our homes, we can use hand guns. If we want to hunt, we can use a single shot hunting rifle. But there is no logical reason why assault weapons are allowed in this country. I disagree with President Obama on much of his politics.....but not on this issue. It is time to bring some sanity to our gun laws so that those who are insane and made of pure evil will not have such easy access to mass murder. I will miss having an AR-15......but so what! The greater good is more important!

And by the way, automatic weapons or semi-automatic weapons did not even exist at the time the 2nd Amendment was written. Banning weapons whose only intent is to kill as many people as possible in as short a time as possible is not an attack on our Constitution, it is an attack on the Evil Destruction of Human Life. I only hope that whatever laws come about as a result of this tragedy includes the RECALL of all those assult weapons that are already out there.....including my own AR-15!

I cannot imagine any politician, Democrat or Republican, giving any kind of rationalization for the continued legalization of assault weapons. Right to Life includes the unborn as well as the children in our schools.

@Irish 21 - they do background tests, but those only show that the person hasn't commited a felony, they don't really test their mental stability or their maturity. Almost anyone who is 21 can go into a gun store and pass such tests since most entanglements they had with the police prior to their turning 18 will be sealed. The background tests, or at least the one I had took all of 5 minutes. The store ran some check on-line and got the results back fast. They told me I would have to wait, I think it was 3 days then, before I could pick up the gun. But after they got back the results, they told me I could take the gun then. I take it that was because of my occupation at the time and they never told me what came up on my background test that superseded the wait requirement, but then I didn't ask either.

It is illegal in Mexico for the average citizen to own a weapon, much less an automatic weapon.

That has resulted in the majority of Mexicans being totally defenseless.

Lil Michelle is simply repeating a line she heard from Huckabee. So now we have TWO confirmed batsh!t crazies.

Are you really suggesting that God would take vengence on little children? If that's your God I want no part of your religion. Are from the Westboro Baptist Church?

The reason for the assualt guns. Some folks are afraid that the President will take there guns.

Seymour,

I agree with you. Every doctor just writes a script these days. "Feeling sad, theres a pill for that". Most people that are depressed or down dont need to be on a drug that just numbs the pain. The big pharm companies push these drugs to make money and give the docs prescribing them a little kick back if they push a certain amount. Has anyone ever seen the side effects on most of these drugs? The list of harmful side effects is longer than the positive. And most of the side effects include depression and sucidal thoughts.......so how does that help someone who is already down?

Yes, he was diagnosed. Everyone around him knew he had serious problems, and yet the mother saw fit to share her love of weaponry with him. Sounds like a disaster that was waiting to happen, which it did.

Obviously it is people who kill people. They pulled the trigger yes. But even if they are complete murderers at heart, that doesn't mean the guns are not enablers. As someone with a psychological trauma haunting them and becomes morbidly obese, it is even worse if there are people around that individual buying them more and more unhealthy food. So let's make a very easy comparison here to gun control. If a mass murderer has a knife, he can kill people, we know that. If the mass murderer has an assault weapon, he will kill MANY people, we know that. If any form of guns are banned, people who want them can still get them, we know that. What we fail to realize often on these idiotic discussions is that EVEN IF the guns are still obtained somehow while being banned, it will be MORE DIFFICULT for the evil people trying to get them. Much more difficult than having it as easily accessible as a slurpie at the corner store. If you put a STRICT gun control law on obtaining them, with let's say.. heavily regulated methods to acquire the license to own guns legally (as in, no record of being mentally ill, no crime record, no one LIVING in your household that IS mentally ill, etc.), a permanent ban on assault weapons (there is NO point in having these at all), and to own semi-automatic you should have to be a law abiding citizen who has already obtained a gun license and have had it for 5 years with a clean record. It should be a privilege to work towards. Also, the people selling the guns should be UPHOLDING these laws. To be able to sell guns should require even more extensive regulations so that it weeds out more of the irresponsible people.

Nothing is perfect, and no change will make it perfect, but we can take STEPS to HELP any situation. Putting forth heavily controlled gun laws WILL make a difference even though it won't be a cure to the cancer of murder. If we legalized all drugs and said well we can't stop all of them, then there would be A LOT more of them being passed around and used and abused. This is all common sense and I don't know why people can't understand things in a multi-faceted perspective. You don't have to be FOR OR AGAINST guns, but you can understand that EVERY MEASURE TAKEN TO HELP A PROBLEM MAKES A DIFFERENCE. Even if it stopped 5 shootings a year, would that not be worth it? Would someone here be willing to risk 5 loved ones because they want to remain ignorant fools? Stop wasting your time saying "PEOPLE KILL PEOPLE" "NO GUNS DO" that is a waste of time. We are all intelligent enough to understand where both sides are coming from. Spamming that back and forth gets you no where. It should be easily agreeable that making it MORE DIFFICULT for a murderer to acquire a fast killing machine will HELP PREVENT THIS FROM HAPPENING MORE THAN MANY OTHER SUGGESTIONS WE HEAR.

I don't want to hear anything about comparisons of other ways people die each year because that is irrelevant. You can talk about those things on comment boards that have to do with those issues, those are separate issues obviously.

And if you don't agree with anything I have written, you can at least agree that we can maybe step up our police response times, and maybe even keep ABLE BODIED police men on site at every school, not some unfit person who can't react fast enough to these situations.

Here's a study that shows that privately owned firearms have stopped 2.5 million crimes a year.

And, while folks like fiesty redhead@1.4 are busy being spoonfed the "FACTS" about Adam Lanza and what kind of activities he and his mother undertook, try to remember that this media outlet right hereNBC NEWS, the one you're drawing you opinions from, is owned by the same company that Adam's father, Peter, works for,GE Energy and Financial which ownes NBCUniversal among other mainstream media outlets since JPMorgan also owns GE and he is the same VP of taxes for that company who was scheduled to testify before the senate banking committee about the LIBOR rate fixing scandal and he is also a partner at Ernst&Young, the accounting firm who handled Enron's books and had all their records in the WTC bldg.7 which was destroyed in 2001 right before those records were to be released to that same senate committee. If you people cannot grasp the implications of what kind of damage Peter Lanza's and James Holmes' father (the Aurora colorado theater shooter), Dr. Robert Holmes' testimony would do to some of the wealthiest people in the world by sending them to prison for 30+ years for fraudulent practices and bankrupting those peoples' banks, then you are clueless about what is really going on in the world. The question still remains of who was the mysterious adult male garbed in camouflage and found lurking in the woods outside of the school immediately after the shootings, whose only statement as police apprehended him was,

"I didn't do it."

You all keep bickering over smoke and mirrors though until you wake up one morning and you have no more freedoms left and you're being rounded up into stockades and executed because you were suspected of disagreeing with what the World Bank and the IMF told you to believe. All I know is there are 20 innocent murdered babies that deserve the respect of finding out who their real murderer was.

The debate over whether the Second Amendment is a net positive, in terms of thwarting or mitigating violent crime, is a moot one.

There are 300,000,000 guns in this country by most estimates I've seen. The Second Amendment isn't going away. And as a pragmatist, I'm convinced that "banning guns" or "coming to get your guns" really would mean that only good citizens would be disarmed, and that would be the case of a law that, on its face, suits my ideology of non-violence, but in practice would have hugely negative effects.

But let's not forget that there's another lesson or two on the clear, indisputable facts of this case.

1. Rampant gun ownership won't always protect you, as Nancy Lanza's death itself shows.

2. In fact, gun security is something we have to address. Evidently her guns were not safe from a son that she knew to be not entirely right in the head. Earlier this month we had the case of the father who shot his kid because he thought his handgun was empty. Earlier this year a guy who pointed and fired his antique weapon randomly, killing an Amish girl in a buggy some distance away. Safety training (and re-training) and safe practices must be made mandatory.

3. Yes, we need better mental health care. But let me warn you that you will see gun advocates saying that a history of mental illness is not alone enough to overcome the enumerated Constitutional right to bear arms. In fact, it has already been going on in our courts, and with some success.

Khan,

That is what I thought. Too lazy to look it up today. I agree with you though, a mental health check isnt a bad idea. I want to say some states already do this. I know this loon tried to buy a gun earlier in the week and was denied. Just goes to show that he was hell bent on causing damage no matter what.

http://rense.com/general76/univ.htm">

since my previous comment didn't capture the link for whatever reason, here it is.

Layton - I see you're talking with jim. And, no, there are NO depths he will not sink to in order to spout his hatred!

@Skeptic-47579

You can't compare two completely different states who have completely different histories and say gun laws don't influence the outcome of crime rates. Maybe if you said Illinois has tried gun laws both ways itself and there was no difference you could state your opinion, but what you are saying is pointless. Illionois has always had high crime rates, and Vermont is TINY. Maybe the demographics are different? Or maybe I should compare the crime rates in Montana to the crime rates in China? Your point is so silly that it doesn't even make me laugh.

Anyone who thinks that we should NOT regulate something because it is out of control is out of their minds. You are the kind of people who think we should give up fighting a crime just because we can't solve it completely. You may as well let people drive drunk freely because they do it anyway. You may as well strip our borders and merge with Mexico. Just save that pointless garbage from this discussion. Those are not studies, those are idiotic comparisons that make no sense at all.

CA, 20 shredded 6 & 7 year olds enemies of whom? we all know what semi-auto assault weapons are for, along with the high capacity magazines--why of course killing, kill as many and as fast as possible.

Sure Skyparrot yet again the prepostorous constitution which the founding fathers recognized that an armed populace was necessary to repel enemies foreign and domestic. Look I understand the anti gun limp wrists believe the guns are problem not people but tell me how many laws were broken by this guy and how many of those said laws saved the lives of the 6 & 7 year olds?

No one has answere this question: how would the 2nd amend. be infringed upon by controlling/baning semi-auto combat style weapons along with the over-loaded magazines--how would this infringe?

simple, it infringes on your right to own an arm. youre trying to make an argument that citizens can bear arms by simply equipping a butter knife. I wonder if you would still think this way if the British Empire made sure you didnt have the right to own a musket, after all wouldnt a bow and arrow be sufficient?

hs321: thanks for the statistics.

Here's another (my sister is an ER nurse) in 100% of the cases involving death from gun shot wounds, a GUN is involved.

What is amazing is that you don't need to do any research to figure that one out.

If you get rid of the guns, you get rid of deaths from gun shot wounds.

The death of a child is a terrible thing.

One death is too many.

Now is the time to end this.

If you are mentally challenged right winger this graphic may be meaningless. Give it a go anyhow

Notice the concentration of gun events in the USA.

http://americablog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Screenshot-50.png

BTW: Where are the GOP's "fiscal cliff" spending cuts?

Fiscal cliff: Obama rejects Boehner’s ‘Plan B’ (UPDATE)

“Speaker Boehner’s ‘plan B’ is the farthest thing from a balanced approach,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in a statement. “It will notprotect middle class families because it cannot pass both Houses of Congress. The Senate bill is the only ‘plan B’ that can be signed into law and prevent taxes from rising by $2,200 on the average middle-class family.”

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/united-states/121218/fiscal-cliff-boehner-obama-plan-b
————————————————————————————————–

I bet the Boner was drunk when he presented that same, ole, warmed, over ridiculous plan.

SMDH!!!

"Another thing that never gets headlines is the number of murders/robberies/crimes that are STOPPED from someone having a weapon to defend themself."

Not a single one of those people that STOPPED those crimes were carrying an assault weapon. STICK TO THE FREAKING SUBJECT!!

Need to ban assault weapons and large capacity ammunition clips...Civilians do not need ANY automatic weapons or large ammunition clips.

Guns kill when in the hands of those who do not value human life by reason of insanity, anger or pathology.

BOTTOM LINE: Guns are a readily available weapon. They are noisy, but neater than clubs, knives or what have you. If a person is mad enough at you or deranged enough to take a life...they will find a way to do it!

Everyone talking about assault weapons needing to be banned.......you do realize that they are just hunting rifles made to look like cool military rifle, right?

How about allowing teachers to do their jobs - teach - and leave the guns to a trained off-duty police officer on staff during school hours?

How about the POSSIBILITY of providing gun training to the principal and assistant principal, as well as making firearms available to them in their offices?

I heard on the news last night the school doors were locked. The office personnel "HEARD" the first shots as the shooter blew out the glass on the door & walked in. It was impossible for them to do ANYTHING effective in stopping what soon went down. How about giving trained, on-site personnel the ability to do SOMETHING?

Baddog40

Funny how conservatives are all for protecting the unborn yet have no problem letting them shoot each other after they are born.

#1.50 - Tue Dec 18, 2012 3:27 PM EST

We have to allow the honest among us the right to carry to defeat the criminals at the time of the crime. It is not that there are too many guns, it is that we have restricted the non-criminal of theirs.

A 6th grade student brought a gun to school today.

Ok people try one more to remember the gun is the INSTRUMENT and only that... CRAZY was behind the gun. BAN all the new guns there are literally more than 250 million guns in the US alone..if someone wants to kill someone they can it is as simple as that...always will be.

actually phillyfan @ #1.97 by the definition of assault weapon, the majority of crimes that were stopped were stopped by people with assault weapons because any semi-automatic firearm with a large capacity magazine is considered an assault weapon, including handguns such as 9 millimeter pistols with clips possessing a capacity greater than 6 rounds.

Bev the racist is casting stones about people being unhinged? LMAFO!!!

American Guns was taken off the air in the same decision to take American Chopper off the air. It had noting to do with the tragedy in CT. Rich Wyat did an interview on the radio this morning. The mass media just loves a good scandal even if it is made up.

To those wanting more gun control. You're going too fast and wanting too much. The reason why the NRA isn't doing anything yet is because they know how fast the government moves. And they still have probably THE strongest lobby in the country. They are waiting for things to calm and tone down. And they will. Like I said nothing moves as slow as the speed of government. And if those who want more gun control ask for and insist on too much, the politicians will get cold feet and move away like they have soo many times in the past. And then where are you? One thing you all have to take into consideration is that Adam Lanza's mother did follow the letter of the law to a tee and the tragedy still happened. You will never take all guns off the street so don't try to go there. And if you did the outlaws would be the only ones with guns. Assault weapons bans and or restrictions are the avenues in which to look at first then go from there. Just don't expect too much too fast or it won't happen at all.

Pigotry - You poor ignorant fool. If the gun ban were so important to the pretender Obama, why would HE have not passed it under the Democrat majority of 2008 -2010? So it's not GW's fault is it! Sadly, the law would not have made a difference anyway. but spout your assinine venom for you are ignorant!

Like any politician, obama and others will try and ride this for all the political capital they can. Senate majority leader ried made a comment the other day about how a big part of the problem is that (in part) we all have to change our attitude on how to address violence in America be it simple assualt, road rage, rape, homicide, etc. Gun supporters have it right when they say "guns don't kill, people do". Just like vehicles don't kill, the nuts behind the wheel do.

The point is, that until we as a populace learn to all get along no amount of legislative goobley gook is going to stop these mass murders. From my own perspective I have no problem with gun ownership with appropriate permits, but see little value in magazines holding more (arbitrary number) than 10 rounds. As for assault weapons, whats their point? Shouldn't the gun owner be proficient enough to make a hit the first or second time.

BTW, a comment was made on bloombergTV on monday that Australia had a series of massacres into the nineties and they passed legislation that cut them down tremendously. The real solution will come from the bottom up, not from the p[oliticians down.

Khan kubla - there in lies the rub, no politician wants to write legislation that requires such mental tests. Regardless, even if such tests were required the nature of American humanity and human rights would make it unenforceable.

concernedone,

I see hear what you are saying but I remember some of my principals and teachers and would not want them having a gun. :)

I am in support of off duty officers or trained security being on site at schools. I think all of the money we pay in taxes could cover that instead of our tax dollars going to a study on why some nut killed a bunch of kids.

Yet, here we go again....off on a tangent.

You never disappoint IDO.

Now he's off on a tangent? Sorry this mass killing is such an inconvenience to you.

Pat ...

A 6th grade student brought a gun to school today.

It was yesterday and it was in Utah. Heard it on the news last night and lost it. Apparently it wasn't loaded but the kid had ammo. Took it out of his backpack and was showing the other kids how he'd use it. That there's some GREAT parenting. The solution is not to arm the children!

And seymour & Irish from above, the problem isn't that they are OVER medicated, the problem is that when the meds work they stop taking them and hit their psychotic lows again. I'd really suggest you visit the NAMI website.

Seeking - couldn't help it! ;-)

None of these proposed restrictions had any impact on the most recent shootings.

1. "Assault-type weapons" are only stylized versions of weapons one could similarly purchase for hunting. Making them illegal does nothing. Besides ask Columbine how well that ban worked for them in 1999...or El Cajon, California in 2001...or Santee, California in 2001....or Fort Gibson, Oklahoma in 1999...or Conyers. Georgia in 1999...or Springfield Oregon in 1998...or Edinboro, Pennsylvania in 1998...or Jonesboro, Arkansas in 1998...or Stamps, Arkansas in 1997...or West Peducah, Kentucky in 1997...or Pearl, Mississippi in 1997...or Bethel, Alaska in 1997...or Moses Lake, Washington in 1996...or Lynnville, Tennessee in 1995...or Wickliffe, Ohio in 1994...or San Diego, California in 1996...or University Park, Pennsylvania in 1996...or Grundy, Virginia in 2002...or Tuscon, Arizona in 2002...or Cleveland, Ohio in 2003. This is a list of only the school shootings that had multiple casualties other than the shooter (no single murder-suicides) during the 10-year assault weapons ban. That averages to more than 2 school-related mass shootings per year during that 10 year ban. An assault-type weapons ban does nothing.
2. If you are going to ban high-capacity magazines then your are also going to have to ban duct tape and low-capacity magazines because a couple feet of duct tape and several low-capacity magazines serve virtually the same purpose as a high-capacity or very high-capacity magazine.
3. Lastly, none of the shooters in any recent mass shooting got his/her firearms from gun shows skirting background checks. James Holmes bought his legally through gun shops. Adam Lanza stole his from his murdered mother after she had purchased them legally in a state with some of the most restrictive gun laws in the US. You know who most likely did purchase a gun at a gun show? The guy in Oregon with a conceal carry permit who confronted and stopped the shooter at Clackamas Town Center. That's who.

Everyone talking about assault weapons needing to be banned.......you do realize that they are just hunting rifles made to look like cool military rifle, right?

Absolutely incorrect. The Bushmaster was originally designed to replace the M16 (any Vet, like me, would know this).

And a Bushmaster cannot be used for hunting. It tears up the flesh too much. Think about that for a minute, Irish.

Yes, he was diagnosed. Everyone around him knew he had serious problems, and yet the mother saw fit to share her love of weaponry with him. Sounds like a disaster that was waiting to happen, which it did.

There is a difference between 'everyone around him knowing' something and a clinical diagnosis of mental illness from a licensed professional. It has been reported that he had Asperger's and my main point was that Asperger's does not equate to 'mentally disturbed' as was originally implied. This issue is very close to my family and my heart. Just because someone doesn't act the way society thinks they should does not mean they are mentally disturbed or a danger to someone. Furthermore, it is not right to define someone with a mental health condition as 'disturbed.' That stigma is part of the problem with the mental health system in this country. Do you define an AIDS or cancer patient by their disease?

Martin Bashir said the NRA just issued a statement about how sorry they are over the Sandy Hook victims. Sorry??? How about looking out for the citizens instead of their gun manufactures!!!!

Bev and the ball-licker Martin Brashir - Did a NRA member do this?

Irish 21 -

We had a 4th grade teacher when I was in grade school who was so mean, we made up songs about hanging or shooting her. It was a joke to kids at that time involving a teacher who LOVED to crack you with a yard stick, coat hanger, a "paddle", etc... Not a joke any more with this progressive society we have today... Definitely happy THAT teacher didn't have a gun. She was just evil... Evil with tenure!

I thought about the security guard idea last night. I'd guess it would add another $100,000 debt to each of our schools. That number might be a bit high, but not too far off...

By the way - off subject - "Irish" huh? All I have to say is ROLL TIDE!

In the world of right-wing gunnery, doing nothing is always the answer because if we do something and it doesn't work, well, see we told ya so. Never mind that nearly every technical advance made in this country was because we tried, failed, tried, failed and tried again. No one, not President Obama or democrats in Congress, or liberals here have claimed that sensible gun laws will eliminate tragic incidents--they won't, but they at least make it harder. It is one part of the picture.

Good grief; reading the right's defense of guns and more guns is the exact reason why we have so many mass shootings. Right-wingers declaring guns save lives; or if more people carried guns, we'd all be safer--safer from whom? The neighbor who's angry because the stereo is too loud or a child walks across his lawn? The guy in the car you accidentally cut off on the freeway, now he's coming for you? Thanks, but no thanks. I'm not anti-gun but I am anti-concealed weapons without good justification; I am anti-assault weapons, anti-extended magazine clips; I am against guns in public places and guns in bars or just people walking down the street armed to the teeth. We no longer live in the Wild, Wild West but reading the right-wing posts here makes me realize they think we do.

Anyone can dig up the numbers that make their case for why guns keep us safe but there are as many contradictory reports that show that often the owners of the guns are shot with their own guns or those guns end up killing a family member or a child accidentally shoots himself, or a child shoots another while playing with that gun. Sorry, that line of argument that guns keep us safe is bull.

While I think the mental health is an important component of new legislation, I have walked that back a bit. A bit.

We are seeing so many murders daily that have nothing to do with mental illness. It's the guns, first and always. It's just that the massacres get the headlines. Individual gun related deaths each day do not.

As far as hunters, approx. 1,000 people are accidentally shot each year.

Someone on DKos wrote that it's the guns.

It is. It's the guns. And the bullets.

And we need safer laws for everybody.

Of course, like most conservatives and liberals, you have no idea what you're talking about, and you're cherry picking stats. Why not mention more people die accidentally in swimming pools? Bicycles? Why not mention that there is NO correlation on a county by county level in he United States, nor is there one transnationally, between more gun control and less crime, violent crime, or gun murder. In fact it's the opposite...gun ownership rates, total guns in a society, and permits to carry guns are NEGATIVELY correlated to crime, whether county by county in the USA, or transnationally.

YOU CAN'T CHERRY-PICK STATS TO FIT YOUR ARGUMENT. YOU HAVE TO LOOK AT ALL COUNTIES OR ALL NATIONS, AND MAKE APPLES TO APPLES COMPARISONS TO TRY AND FIND A COROLLARY, AND THEN FIGURE OUT WHAT COROLLARIES ARE MOST PREVELANT TO DRAW A CAUSAL CONCLUSION.

What is corollary and causal to gun murder transnationally and county by county is not guns or lack of guns (even though having guns has a higher correlation to lower crime and lower gun murder rates), IT'S THE DRUG WAR.

Where you have no Drug War, you have low gun murder rates (and crime rates in general), regardless of gun laws being strict or not. The opposite is also true.

A Mathematical Approach to What Causes Gun Murder in America

Mass murder shootings happen 20 times a year in the USA on average...but that is less than 2% of all gun murders. It isn't the big threat in terms of annual gun murders. It is also one of the least preventable causes (because crazy people use cars, knives, rope, fire, fists, bombs, etc., to murder people). So what are the causes of the vast majority of gun murders (which would matter to those interested in actually reducing gun murder)?

Some wish to have gun control and gun bans in the wake of our last few mass shooting tragedies.

At what cost? Childproof society because a SMALL number (per capita) abuse the right? There are 200,000,000 guns in the USA, and 40-60 million people own those guns. Until this last year, which the FBI will have no official stats for until 2 years from now BTW, the crime rates, including violent crime and gun crime, had been falling for 30-50 years (moreso in the last 30). And this year there was only a slight uptick (several years into a recession no less, where people turn to drug "crime" for supplemental income). The population growth and guns in circulation, not to mention legal permits to carry guns, over that 30 years has far outpaced the gun murder growth. So even though the total gun murders probably went up this year, we still have a declining rate overall in the last 3 decades. I'll overestimate and say we had 13,000 gun murders, and do a little math for you.

Let's say the 40-60 million gun owners are 50 million owners...right in the middle (the average estimate).

200 million guns / 50 million = 4 guns per owner on average.

200 million guns / 13,000 gun murders = 15,384.62 guns per murder (that's a lot of guns not killing people)

Percentage chance a gun in the USA will murder = .0065% (or 6.5 in every 1000 guns...that's 993.5 guns in every 1000 guns not murdering people)

50 million gun owners / 13,000 gun murders = 3,846.15 gun owners not murdering for every 1 gun murder (that's a lot of gun owners not murdering anyone)

Percentage chance a gun owner will murder with a gun = .026% (or 26 in every 1,000...that's 974 gun owners in every 1,000 not murdering anyone)

315,000,000 American people / 13,000 gun murders = 24,230.77 Americans per 1 gun murder victim

Percentage chance you as an American will be murdered by a gun = .0041% (that's 4.1 in every 1,000...or a tiny threat for the mathematically challenged. You have a better chance at dying of the flu - 33,000 flu deaths per year in the USA)

Permits to carry guns and total guns in circulation in the USA has never been higher (which is not the same as ownership rate, which is actually down)...and yet the threat is very, very low. Still think all those other people should give up their rights for a threat less than the flu? Please recall that almost 70% of gun murders are commited by criminals, not law abiding citizens. No gun ban or gun control logically affects them, as they already don't abide laws, and we aren't on an island where getting guns is hard when they are banned (it's easier in say England or Australia, because of geography, to ban guns).

Now let's compare to the Holy Grail of gun control advocates (Canada and England) who value freedom so low as to want "to purchase temporary safety at the expense of liberty", as Ben Franklin put it (he said you will "get neither" when you do that, and I'll add "you deserve neither"). BTW, I'd point out Canada didn't outlaw guns at all in reality :

Canada's population 35.5 million / 126 gun murders = 281,746 citizens per gun murder

Percentage chance of being murdered by a gun as a Canadian = .0004% (4 in every 10,000)

Gun owners in Canada is 10.934 million / 126 gun murders = 86,777.78 gun owners per gun murder

Percentage chance a gun owner in Canada murders you with a gun = .0012% (1.2 in every 1,000)

Now let's look at England's gun ban paradise:

England's population 53 million / 39 gun murders = 1,358,974 citizens per gun murder

Percentage chance of being murdered by a gun in England = .0001% (or 1 in 10,000)

Gun owners in England 1.8 million / 39 gun murders = 46,153.85 gun owners per 1 murder by gun

Percentage chance a English gun owner murders you with a gun = .0022% (2.2 in every 1,000)

I'd point out gun CRIMES (not just murders) in England have soared upward 35% since the gun bans. Criminals used handguns in 46% more crimes, and it was the fourth consecutive year to see a rise...there were more than 2,200 more gun crimes last year, the most since the previous peak in 1993.

Stats show the number of crimes involving handguns have more than doubled since the post-Dunblane massacre, which brought about the ban on the weapons, from 2,636 in 1997-1998 to 5,871.

Quote:Unadjusted figures showed overall recorded crime in the 12 months to last September rose 9.3%, but the Home Office stressed that new procedures had skewed the figures.

Shadow home secretary Oliver Letwin said: "These figures are truly terrible.

"Despite the street crime initiative, robbery is massively up. So are gun-related crimes, domestic burglary, retail burglary, and drug offenses.

"The only word for this is failure: the Government's response of knee-jerk reactions, gimmicks and initiatives is not working and confused signals on sentences for burglary will not help either."

So England's gun bans may have lowered total murders, and even the rate of murders, but the violent crime rates are soaring. Guns are a game theory mathematical deterent to crime, especially violent crime, believe it or not.

So what can we get from all these stats?

Population matters, as does other factors besides guns themselves:

The whole story is told in the percentage chance a gun owner will murder with a gun - USA is .026%, Canada is .0012%, and England's is .0022%.

As you can see, Canada has a higher rate of ownership of guns and more total guns than England, and yet has a LOWER gun owner murder rate than England! That means it isn't guns that are the factor making England murder more. So why is Canada so low, while England is nearly double that? Why is the USA more than 10 times higher than England? All of this is adjusted for population and total guns in society...so what is the factor making us so much more prone to murder (even if it is a tiny threat overall to life) here in the USA?

THE DRUG WAR.

In England they have a drug war, but they do not focus on possession. Meanwhile we lock up nonviolent criminals at the almost the exact same rate as violent ones in America. Canada has legal marijuana in some areas, and has for years, and takes a very relaxed attitude toward drug use in general (although they have laws which are largely unenforced).

Just like during the Prohibition of alcohol, murder rates have soared under the Drug War. So has our incarcerations and incarceration rates...we now lock up more people in total than any other country in the world (yes, even the vastly more populated China and India)! That's total and per capita! "Land of the Free"? Think again. "Land of the prisoner" is more accurate. We arrested more than 750,000 people last year for just marijuana! 86% of those arrests were for small amounts; simple possession charges. It's not only tyrannical, it's a waste of resources which fuels a black market run by criminal sociopaths, and takes resources away from fighting actual violent crime like theft, property damage, assault, rape, child abuse, and murder.

This War on Drugs (and personal adult freedom) has given us the street gang phenomenon on the scales we see today. Chicago alone has dozens of separate drug gangs. They also have a high murder rate to go along with super-strict gun control in comparison to other cities...because guns aren't the problem, the Drug War is. Many of their gangs can trace their roots to either the beginning of Prohibition, or the beginning of the modern Drug War.

In Honduras where gun murders are most common and horribly frequent, they have gun rights...but they also have a country which is a main thoroughfaire for the illegal drug trade. By comparison, Uruguay has almost the same gun ownership rates as the USA and the same gun rights as well, yet they have a lower gun murder rate because they have no war on drugs. In fact, their govt is seriously considering selling marijuana to its citizens to get the drug trade completely above-board!

If you want our rate of murder to decrease via guns you don't take away guns, you end the Drug War. If you have any doubts about this go look at the murder rates after alcohol Prohibition began, and then after it ended. Also look at countries that have already ended their Drug Wars.

Crime rates in Prohibition rose immediately 78%, 24% in just one year from 1920-1921 (the first year)

http://library.thinkquest.org/04oct/0049...e_Rate.htm

The murder rate was cut in nearly half (40% decline), from 10 per 100,000 to 6 per 100,000 when Prohibition ended. This was directly caused by the repeal of Prohibition in 1933.

http://www.cato.org/publications/policy-...as-failure

If we want to half our gun murders, legalize drugs. If you want to further bring it down address the next major cause; domestic violence. Spanking children leads to many issues surrounding violence, but especially domestic violence. If domestic violence is how you raise children, then expect them to use it themselves as adults. A small number of those people will kill a domestic relative or partner. The gun simply facilitates it.

The final point I'll make is that if only .026% of gun owners murder someone with a gun, then 99.974% of gun owners don't kill someone with a gun. It's hard to argue we need to punish the 99.974% for what the .026% do. That kind of illogic is used in schools to punish classrooms full of kids for what one anonymous child has done...and it leads to bullying, because children then ostracize their peers who are guilty (and they don't know how to ostracize responsibly, so it ends up in bullying). We should use a more logical approach on adults. In a nation of 315 million people, with a Drug War raging and domestic violence against kids being the norm, a 99.974% responsible gun owner rate is unbelievably good. Perspective, instead of irrational fear and knee-jerk reaction, is what helps here.

ADDED:

Someone said they thought we could half gun murder by ending the drug war, but the we'd double the drunk/drugged driving deaths...but that is illogical. No one has any problem getting drugs now, and they already drive on them now. Also, when drugs were legalized across the board in other nations the usage only went up slightly, and in some nations actually decreased. Plus, when we re-legalized alcohol the usage here only went up slightly, while alcoholism went down (especially among minors), and the murder rate fell in that first year (1933) 40%. THINK through why your criticisms might not be logical...and Bing or Google them to see people have already answered these illogical and/or irrational reservations.

Lastly, someone else said they would never change their mind about being anti-gun no matter the evidence...but again, that is irrational. There are irrational people who won't fly even though they ADMIT cars are more likely to kill them. They drive but won't fly...that is irrational. Guns are less likely to kill a kid than swimming pools. How afraid are you of swimming pools? Cars kill more people than guns...how afraid are you of cars? Gun murder is almost 3 times less likely to kill you than the normal flu virus...how afraid are you of guns vs the flu? Being rational means fearing things based on thr actual RATIONAL chance they have to kill you, not the IRRATIONAL fear of HOW it might kill you. Guns are not nearly as dangerous as the media and most anti-gun people think they are.

In fact, more lives are saved in the USA every year than are taken by guns every year. They are in reality, indisputably, a NET GAIN of life. If only 2% of the 750,000 crimes prevented by private guns (FBI stat) save one life (or 1% saves 2 lives, etc.), then more lives are saved than taken. BTW...sutdies show many more than that are saved by guns...the estimate by Clinton Administration study was 2 million lives per year...which might be high...and other more intensive studies show the number to be in the tens of thousands, up to 200,000, per year. But EVEN IF the number was only 15,000 as I suggested with my 2% number, we're still looking at more lives saved than murdered.

FURTHER ADDED:

A study done by the Harvard Jounal of Law and Public Policy reports some interesting statistics.

The study, which appeared in Volume 30, Number 2 of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy (pp. 649-694), set out to answer the question in its title: "Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide? A Review of International and Some Domestic Evidence." Contrary to conventional wisdom, and the sniffs of our more sophisticated and generally anti-gun counterparts across the pond, the answer is "no." And not just no, as in there is no correlation between gun ownership and violent crime, but an emphatic no, showing a negative correlation: as gun ownership increases, murder and suicide decreases.

The findings of two criminologists - Prof. Don Kates and Prof. Gary Mauser - in their exhaustive study of American and European gun laws and violence rates, are telling:

Nations with stringent anti-gun laws generally have substantially higher murder rates than those that do not. The study found that the nine European nations with the lowest rates of gun ownership (5,000 or fewer guns per 100,000 population) have a combined murder rate three times higher than that of the nine nations with the highest rates of gun ownership (at least 15,000 guns per 100,000 population).

For example, Norway has the highest rate of gun ownership in Western Europe, yet possesses the lowest murder rate. In contrast, Holland's murder rate is nearly the worst, despite having the lowest gun ownership rate in Western Europe. Sweden and Denmark are two more examples of nations with high murder rates but few guns. As the study's authors write in the report:

If the mantra "more guns equal more death and fewer guns equal less death" were true, broad cross-national comparisons should show that nations with higher gun ownership per capita consistently have more death. Nations with higher gun ownership rates, however, do not have higher murder or suicide rates than those with lower gun ownership. Indeed many high gun ownership nations have much lower murder rates. (p. 661)

http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs...online.pdf

STILL FURTHER ADDED:

It appears there is also NO correlation between single parenthood, violent video games, movies, TV shows, music, one religion or another (or lack thereof), etc.

Like guns, those are just NOT causal to high gun murder rates, despite the illogic used to say they are. (To be clear, it is intuitive to think guns and these other things cause the problem...but there is NO factual basis for it, and the factual nature of things is often deductively logical, and counter-intutive.)

Jody - Chicago Obama's adopted hometown has more gun murders than any other city in America. It has the toughest gun laws. These guns are not registered. Most of them are stolen. The only one affected by the tough gun laws are the law abiders. There are no answers. I wish we could get rid of every gun, but getting rid of a BILLION guns is not going to happen.

My Wife is a Teacher, my mother is a teacher, my mother-in law is a teacher.

The safest thing to do is to spend money ON our school systems, and put a cop in EVERY school across america. We can give 8 billion dollars to Egypt, but we can't afford to secure our schools?

Yes, this is something that would take money, but wouldn't it make sense?

Just one...two for the bigger schools....just one or two police officers in every school, every school day.

What is wrong with that? We don't need to arm teachers. We don't need to trample on our constitutional right to own hand guns or rifles, (an unarmed civilian populace opens to the door to dictators and totalitarian governments), all we need to do is hire a few extra cops per town/city/county/schoold district...whatever.

astounding - Great thought, how about national guard. The police seem to have enough on thier plate.

After wading through 122 comments, my most striking thought is that the First Read regulars have no idea that folks are out here preventing and thwarting crime with their own weapons....from store clerks to homeowners....on a daily basis. Incidents appear daily on TV and in the newspapers. Maybe you libbies all ought to expand your horizons a bit and read something besides First Read!

I call BS on that definition of an assault weapon. The basic definition is that they are either 1.) automatic (ban it) and 2) semi-automatic. And that they use intermediate cartridges which were specifically made for the military. a 9mm pistol is not considered an assault weapon unless it is modified. You guys come up with the lamest "facts" ever.

To all who are posting how massacres were prevented by armed individuals.....NOTICE THAT NONE WERE ASSAULT WEAPONS ! Banning assault weapons intended for murder do not infringe on your right to carry a handgun or rifle to protect or feed yourself. If you need assault weapons to defend yourself or to hunt, then you have more serious issues.

Okay sheeple. I hate to educate those that don't want to be educated. But, lets be realistic here. The assault rifle (a great hunting rifle by the way) was used in this evil crime. What about Virginia tech, or the Colorado theater shootings. Handguns and a shotgun. The assault rifle jammed on the theater shooting. So, you sheeple ban assault rifles. Next looney uses a glock, oooops, we forgot to ban those, lets do that. Next freak uses a shotgun (using buckshot), ooooops, damn forgot those too. Next devil uses a revolver with speed loader (can fire 18 rounds in under 30 seconds), damn, we better ban our six shooters, etc etc etc etc not to mention gas bombs, or anything else. It wont stop here. Assault rifles are actually not a gunmans choice in the first place. You can't conceal them. This is so stupid to blame this type of gun for this. A handgun is much more deadlier due to concealment and close quarters. Ban em all!!! And lets hope this commie government takes care of us. Give me a break.

Caesar Augustus-

why does anyone need these kind of weapons - other than the military????????????????

against enemies foreing and DOMESTIC but i understand in Libtopia that's not possible.

Similar to the douche bag that carried the AR to a town hall meeting when Obama was first elected - I laugh at people like this. Know why?

If @!$%# hits the fan - guess who I am going to zero in on? I gurantee I can get to him before he can sling that rifle around and get a shot off.

So you clowns keep telling yourself that an assault rifle is needed for self defense and I will be watching you. You people are every bit as scary as the crazy that shot up the CT school.

Ddotherightthing ...

The assault rifle (a great hunting rifle by the way)

For hunting WHAT exactly? You don't hunt. My father hunted and his friends as well and they did a fantastic job without an assault rifle. Requires skill of the hunter. And yes, I know how to make elk chili.

There is no need for an assault rifle for hunting. Nor is there a need for 30 round clips for hunting. If you state that there is, you're one lousy hunter. We all know there is one exception to that rule. They are ONLY needed if you're hunting humans.

Beverly in Chicago...thanks for showing us the map of gun related events...did you notice how many gun related incidents were in BLUE STATES? Now that is some interesting stuff.

How many gun related incidents are happening right now in Chicago? Why isn't it on the nightly news? Is it cause the children being shot by gangs/thieves and thugs are all black? Where are the white liberal hypocrites who pretend not to be racist because they voted for a black president when black kids are killed nightly in Chicago? I didn't hear them screaming about the hundreds of black children that have been murdered in Detroit and Chicago by black thugs this year alone, have you? No, screw them inner city kids, it's rich white CT for Pete's sake, now that is a really important place, just ask them.

No, they only care when their safe little neighborhoods are attacked...to hell with the inner city mother who cling to the one gun she owns (illegally thanks to white politicians) that will defend her kids when the crack head sneaks in through her window to rob them.

HYPOCRITES and LIARS are all I see lately in our nation. Finger pointers, blame layers, and generally disgusting people that only pretend to care, yet still vote in politicians that accept huge payouts from pharmaceutical companies that keep kids drugged. Yeah, that's right keep voting in greedy men that allow your doctors to peddle poison to kids with fake ADHD lies. Instead of love you drug them. Instead of home training you drug them. It is far easier to allow someone else to raise your kids than to do it yourselves. These school attacks are because the PARENTS FAILED THEIR OWN KIDS. Not how they did it or with what they did it with. Those killers were once kids. They needed help, and no one gave it to them. But blame the gun or the knives or the bomb...it's much easier for people to deny the truth and lay blame somewhere else.

As for safe countries...funny how the UK/London is a really crappy place to live, of course don't ask the Brittish liars, I've lived there and it's a cesspool of crime. Misery wants company, so they want you to disarm yourselves and give up your rights like they did. Never trust those that are foreign that seek to disarm Americans, and are gleeful about the prospect. They want what you have and they will come and take it.

I'm keeping my guns, I don't trust the white man politicians or the elected black man with no real life experience. All politicians are liars and speak through both sides of their mouths while stuffing their pockets with our tax monies.

My Apache people used to use bows and arrows and we lost against the white mans rifles. We learned quickly that even playing fields are needed, so we traded for rifles. Rifles were 100x more useful against lying invaders, had we only had them before the boats landed things might have been different. In any case, we will never forget that peace is a lie invented to have us lay down our arms and give up our rights. White/black people, when you give up your guns, it'll only be because someone else wants to take away your land or freedom. I sleep peacefully at night because I have a weapon that can be used if my family is threatened by a bad person who wants what I have worked for and will hurt us for it. No, never again will those of us that have been lied to allow the liars to take away our rights to protect ourselves.

Don't believe that you have been lied to like my people were by the same snakes that only want you to bow down before them? No, worries, you will soon find out that history is a cruel teacher, and repeating her class is one hell of a lesson. Ask the Jews how giving up their guns for the cause helped them in the end. Ask them also how governments that steal your hard earned money/belongings while claiming that the wealthy are too wealthy or the armed homeowner too armed can leave an entire world broken. Ask yourself what side of history you will be on when the next war comes...The side that fights for freedoms or the side that cheers as the government takes them away.

To all who are posting how massacres were prevented by armed individuals.....NOTICE THAT NONE WERE ASSAULT WEAPONS !

Okay sheeple. I hate to educate those that don't want to be educated. But, lets be realistic here. The assault rifle (a great hunting rifle by the way) was used in this evil crime.

1. You should both read my very long post above...because less than 2% of annual gun murders are mass shootings, so this doesn't really do much to reduce gun murder. "Assault rifles" are not a major cause of most gun murder anyways, and mass shottings are the least of threats to be murdered by a gun. BTW...many mass shootings are carried out with handguns (a mass shooting is 4 or more victims).

2. The 2nd Amendment was UNIVERSALLY agreed to by the Founders who favored it for one reason, and it wasn't self defense, hunting, or sport shooting...it was to overthrow a tyrannical government. To you that may be talk of "treason", but if not for that kind of "treason" we'd still be part of the UK. The fact is the Founders are easily quotable, and NONE said the right to own a gun was about self defense, hunting, or sports...it was about stopping tyranny. We need assault rifles to do that...and those rifles can be easily made fully automatic if that time ever comes. If you think the majority of the military will kil their own citizens, or that nuking a nation leaves the govt with a nation to rule, or that 40-60 million gun owners have no logistical chance of beating a military of a few hundred thousand, you're not thinking it through very well. Defecting members of the military will supply patriots with planes, tanks, bombs, etc...so it's not like overthrowing a tyrannical genocidal state would be impossible.

Just thank goodness, as I do, that we have never come to that point. No one wants that...but we need the ability to do it.

Blame the Tool, Not the man. If it was a baseball bat we'd be talking about banning baseball, if it was knife we wouldn't be allowed to cut up a turkey for Christmas. Ultimately the problem lies with ZERO FAMILY VALUES. Parents of today thinks kids are just add water and food and let schools and govt figure out the rest. No Discipline, Zero respect for anything and absolutely NO Remorse about anything. All family traditions and society values have been eliminated to a few minimum requirements. As we are dictated that pledge of allegiance or prayer is bad in schools, we become more people of stone as integrity, humility and humanity has dwindled to a part time action and not a full time embedded emotion.

No one takes ownership of their actions, always passing the buck to avoid the responsibilty. Thats why this happened. Don't hide psychopaths in your basement- your child or not.

Layton - as I posted yesterday - no self-respecting hunter WOULD EVER use an assault gun for hunting. It is not sportsman like and defeats the purpose. My brother hunts - both bow and arrow and rifle. He can bring down a deer with one arrow or one shot. He would NEVER use an assault weapon.

And, he never hunts anything that doesn't end up on the table.

if you want your children to learn about God, then take them to church. school is for learning to read, write and do arithmetic.

The assault rifle (a great hunting rifle by the way)

For hunting WHAT exactly?

Exactly Layton,

If they need an assault rifle to bring down a Bambi, there are much more serious issues which need to be addressed...

If @!$%# hits the fan - guess who I am going to zero in on? I gurantee I can get to him before he can sling that rifle around and get a shot off.

So you clowns keep telling yourself that an assault rifle is needed for self defense and I will be watching you. You people are every bit as scary as the crazy that shot up the CT school.

1. You do realize you'd never get close enough, right? Long range weapon vs short range weapon..herp derp.

2. That's right...ad hominem everyone in favor of what the Founders intended the 2nd Amend to be (a hedge against tyrannical govt, and a way to overthrow it), and label us all mass murderers even though only .026% of all gun owners in America murder someone with a gun. Genius.

Okay, apparently hell has frozen over.

The National Rifle Association said on Tuesday it is "prepared to offer meaningful contributions" to prevent future massacres like the Connecticut shooting on Friday, marking a sharp change in tone for the nation's largest gun rights group.

"The National Rifle Association of America is made up of four million moms and dads, sons and daughters - and we were shocked, saddened and heartbroken by the news of the horrific and senseless murders in Newtown," the organization said in a statement sent to reporters.

The NRA plans a news conference on Friday after staying silent out of respect for families in Newtown, Connecticut, and as a matter of common decency, the statement said.

Maybe a little self-regulation is in order????

Seeking ...

Okay, apparently hell has frozen over.

From all that I've heard the past few days, this shooting is very different in the hearts of Americans. All of have been very tragic, but having innocents slaughtered it touches every single one of us, including those members of the NRA. Happy to see they are taking steps!

Feisty Redhead Roselle, IL

If they need an assault rifle to bring down a Bambi, there are much more serious issues which need to be addressed...

Anyone who needs an assault weapon to kill a deer shouldn't be allowed to have a driver's license, let alone a hunting license.

Let's STOP this ridiculous witch hunt. 3 guns used in this attack. 310 million that weren't. Our laws work for the vast, overwhelming majority of gun owners. Laws will not stop a criminal, but improved mental health care and access to mental health services may stop someone from becoming a criminal.

If the current administration was serious about stopping gun violence, they wouldn't revive a decade old ban that didn't work in the 1990's and won't work today. All statistics point that gun violence has gone down as ownership in this country has risen between 2004-2012. And this is not some conservative spin, it was actually reported right here on MSNBC earlier today. Reinstating ineffective policy is nothing more than smoke-and-mirrors tactic to calm the frenzy (you all) which in reality distracts you from the real issue:

MENTAL HEALTH CARE!

Layton - I hope the steps they propose are significant. I wondered how many bodies it would take before they grew a conscience. Apparently the number is 26.

MmmMmmBeer - drunk already are you? When you can "overlook" the deaths of 20 yound children it says everything about you. I believe - if you paid attention which clearly you haven't - the President talked about a combination of things including mental health care. Try keeping up!

It may be the NRA doesn't agree with you. Wouldn't that just frost you?

Anyone interested in reducing gun murder significantly should read post #1.120

Drop your closed minds (both sides) and bring your logic and reason hats.

Jimmy the bleakBlame the Tool, Not the man. If it was a baseball bat we'd be talking about banning baseball, if it was knife we wouldn't be allowed to cut up a turkey for Christmas. Ultimately the problem lies with ZERO FAMILY VALUES

The problem in this case was that the family valued guns.

Obama is the man to bring us back to a civilized society!!!! (just like health care, many will come into this new civilized america kicking and screaming...)

BAN high-capacity magazines and assault weapons NOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

noneoftheabovein08

Beverly in Chicago...thanks for showing us the map of gun related events...did you notice how many gun related incidents were in BLUE STATES? Now that is some interesting stuff.

Did you ever stop to think where those guns come from? They're bought in large quantities in yahoo states with lax gun laws at gun shows where you don't have to go through a background check.

How many gun related incidents are happening right now in Chicago? Why isn't it on the nightly news? Is it cause the children being shot by gangs/thieves and thugs are all black?

You need to invent another reason to hate black people. That one doesn't hold water. President Obama mentioned Chicago's gun violence problem in his speech, and it's talked about on MSNBC shows all the time.

ProIndividual - post 1.120 is only good in your mind because YOU posted it. It holds no value.

Kleck's work is not without some controversy and doubt

From Wikipedia

A study of gun use in the 1990s, by David Hemenway at the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, claimed that criminal use of guns is far more common than self-defense use of guns.^[14] Kleck claims that Hemenway's own surveys confirmed Kleck's conclusion that defensive gun use numbers at least in the hundreds of thousands each year, and that a far larger number of surveys (at least 20) have shown that defensive uses outnumbered criminal uses.;^[15] however, the Hemenway study just cited gives no such figure and says in its conclusion, "We might expect that unlawful 'self-defense' gun uses will outnumber the legitimate and socially beneficial ones." Critics, including Hemenway, respond that these estimates are difficult to reconcile with comparable crime statistics, are subject to a high degree of sampling error, and that "because of differences in coverage and potential response errors, what exactly these surveys measure remains uncertain; mere repetition does not eliminate bias".^[16] In another article, Hemenway notes that Kleck has armed women preventing 40% of all sexual assaults, a percentage he considers unlikely because few women go armed. In the same article, Hemenway notes that Kleck's survey shows armed citizens wounding or killing attackers 207,000 times in one year, contrasted against the total of around 100,000 Americans wounded or killed, accidentally or intentionally, in a typical year.^[17]

Various studies have found that defensive gun uses occur at a dramatically lower magnitude than that found by Kleck. In the article "Guns in America: National Survey on Private Ownership and Use of Firearms" by Philip J. Cook and Jens Ludwig, Cook and Ludwig quote the National Crime Victim Survey as finding 108,000 DGUs per year. One section of the article compares the U.S. crime rate to the number of DGUs reported by Kleck and Kleck-like studies and concludes that their estimate of the DGUs is improbably high.^[18] An article published by the Bureau of Justice Statistics says, "In 1992 offenders armed with handguns committed a record 931,000 violent crimes ... On average in 1987-92 about 83,000 crime victims per year used a firearm to defend themselves or their property. Three-fourths of the victims who used a firearm for defense did so during a violent crime; a fourth, during a theft, household burglary, or motor vehicle theft."^[19]

Kleck has responded to these criticisms, claiming that studies of methodological errors in surveys concerning other controversial behaviors consistently find that the errors produce, on net, underestimates of the frequency of the behaviors.^[15]

Seeking Sanity - What? You make no sense in any of your various rants on this board, nor in your accusation that I somehow overlooked what happened last Friday.

It's no coincidence that you didn't address any of the facts presented, and simply respond with emotion. That is exactly what we have seen the past few days from our politicians and the media. That will not lead you nor anyone down a path that solves the root cause. That will simply be a bandaid to silence the masses (as it was in 1993) and this will continue.

We need to have a real, data-driven discussion about the underlying issues here. The underlying issues is not the tool being used - as pointed out, there are many more dangerous tools out there that kill many more people each day and those don't come up for discussion. Same applies here. Let's have a relevant, fact-based discussion and leave your emotions out of it. That doesn't mean you have overlooked the tragedy or devalue the importance of what has happened, it means you use evidence to approach solving a serious problem. Keep seeking that sanity and perhaps we can have an intelligent discussion in the future.

wtf is wrong with you people. Baseball bats and knives cannot be used to kill or maim dozens of people within a few seconds. Most guns and ammo used in these mass shootings were purchased legally to begin with.

This should be a no brain-er folks. Average people don't need assault weapons, period. And just because there are many in circulation already doesn't mean we can't start doing something about them.

ProInvididual...

At what cost? Childproof society because a SMALL number (per capita) abuse the right?

It's not a small number, especially compared to other countries. For example, the number of firearms murders in the U.S. per 100,000 population (3.7) is 92.5 times that of the U.K., and 185 times that of Japan. We're 14th in the world, right after Zimbabwe, and the only industrialized country in the top 20.

Over 30,000 people in the U.S. die from the use of firearms every year, 96% of which are intentional and including 60% of all homicides by any cause.

Gun safety regulations are not punishment, and are long overdue.

Spare us the NRA propaganda. Enough is enough.

In spite of all this gibberish, I personally have saved mine, and others lives twice thanks to my CCW.
So, not only could nobody here ever change my opinion, you gun haters can KMA! You have no valid opinion until you've experienced extreme violence aimed directly at you.

MmmMmmBeer - clearly your reading comprehension skills need much work! I DID discuss Mental Health care - why can you not see that? As I always say, seeking sanity in the Republican party but as you and others like you prove daily, there is NONE to be found. Try reading in the future then post if YOU actually want to appear intelligent. All you've shown is - you're NOT!

Toosano - Of course you have - and I'm the Easter Bunny!

Our country is 16 Trillion dollars in Debt. The US is bankrupt. Can the President and Congress do anything to fix the financial crisis? Why in the name of everything holy under the canopy of heaven does anybody in their right mind think that our Government can come up with a solution to gun violence. Every year thousands die in automobile accidents. Our Government hasn't made our roads safer. Thousands die from prescription drug and illegal drug overdoses. Here too our Government is powerless. To depend upon the Government to fix societal problems is just a waste of time. Personal responsibility begins in the home not in the halls of congress. Don't look to others to solve these problems look to yourself and fellow citizens. Not some puke in a suit.

phillyfan@#1.125 Depends on which definition suits your own personal agenda then I suppose.
http://www.bing.com/Dictionary/search?q=define+assault+weapon&qpvt=definition+of+assault+weapon&FORM=DTPDIA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assault_weapon (and seldom, if ever, do I use wikipedia for reference since it is too subjective and open to self-serving agendas)
http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcassaul.html
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/assault%20weapon
http://civilliberty.about.com/od/guncontrol/a/Assault-Weapons.htm
so here's a bunch of different definitions, take your pick of which one suits your own agenda and what you desire to believe but I stand by what I said in the definition that gun control advocates would apply.

For all those who say we should not be blaming guns, they are just tools.

Guns are not TOOLS, they are WEAPONS. They are designed, formed, and manufactured for one purpose, to KILL.

Those which are semi-automatic, assault, with red dot laser assisted sights just do it extremely efficiently.

We don't need to kill efficiently.

We don't need to kill at all.

Considering the previous Assault Weapons Ban did nothing but limit cosmetic features, rather than functionality or lethality. And considering that the military's attraction to these rifles is that they are lightweight, not because they are any more lethal than a hunting rifle (just lethal _enough— in a trained soldier's hands).

A new AWB is going to about the same amount of nothing in preventing crime.

(1) address poverty

(2) subsidize mental health care for disturbed people (these events are always caused by someone on somebody's radar)

(3) legalize pot and undercut drug violence.

That will do something about gun violence.

Since Friday there have been over 20 children between the ages of 0 & 14 killed in the US . Many of those children were torn apart , crushed , burned alive, impaled by metal, wood ,glass or all 3.

Since Friday there have been over 130 people 15 years of age and older brutally killed in the US. Many of those were torn apart, crushed , burned alive, impaled by metal, wood ,glass or all 3.

All those people were killed by criminals known as drunk drivers.

Why no media coverage? Where are the calls to ban high capacity beer containers or to have back ground checks for the purchasers ? No one needs a 24 pack!! No one needs high capacity bottles either. Limit all bottles to 1 once .

From the mouth of one of the most conservative men in Australian Politics...

There is more to this than merely the lobbying strength of the
National Rifle Association and the proximity of the November presidential
election. It is hard to believe that their reaction would have been any
different if the murders in Aurora had taken place immediately after the
election of either Obama or Romney. So deeply embedded is the gun culture of the
US, that millions of law-abiding, Americans truly believe that it is safer to
own a gun, based on the chilling logic that because there are so many guns in
circulation, one's own weapon is needed for self-protection. To put it another
way, the situation is so far gone there can be no turning back.

Former Australian Prime Minister John Howard

Put that in your pipe and smoke it! Neonuts!

Assault Rifles are for combat not hunt or home protection. That's from a Former United States Marine...

Enough with the nonsense. Time to protect our children from ourselves.

DaNoid, you can't pass a law to stop a criminal from breaking the law. That logic is just stupid and nieve. At the end of the day, people who would comit gun violencee will still get their guns and the rest of us will be ripe picking for them to do as they want.

Limit cartridge size? Any good ol boy with a decent workshop can make a bigger homemade one.

Ban all guns? A quick trip to the Home Depot and Citgo and you have nice pipe bomb. The deadliest weapons at Colombine were those propane tanks. Thank God they botched that job.

Assault rifle = ?

AK-47 (common lingo) = 7.62mm ~ .308 cal i.e a common hunting round. (not exact I agree but reasonably close) Good for larger game.

M-15/AR-15 = 5.56mm ~.223 cal a relatively small but high velocity round. Good for small game or maybe deer.

Both are labeled as assault rifles but the weapon used in virtually all the attacks we have seen where "assault" has been the label a common deer rifle could have used the same round and could have been a semi-automatic weapon, i.e. no difference.

Me - right winger and gun enthusiast...sort of. Am I in favor of guns to keep the silly lib's from stealing from me? Yep. Am I in favor of reasonable gun control to keep the guns out of wack jobs hands? That too.

Obama took office with dems in control of both houses, and they never attempted to pass the assualt rifle ban.

Not that I care about assualt rifles, except it is the slippery slope that dems want to go down. How many deaths in america are caused by assualt rifles?

How many deaths are caused by people text messaging, and talking on their cell phone while driving?

We will never know that answer but it is well over 2000 total deaths by distracted drivers, which I am sure is more than deaths by assualt rifle. Anyone for mandatory checking of cell phone use when someone is involved in a injury causing car accident?

Feisty Red Neck dude and other left nut Chavez's...what exactly is an "assault rifle"?

Devie...fake marine...demodork (since you get to throw out personal attacks I guess you can take it)

so you are saying ban semi-automatic weapons right?...in your make believe military service were you issued a "semi-automatic" weapon or an "automatic" weapon?...most people who don't pretend to have been in the military know that it is illegal to own an "automatic" weapon and NONE of the mass killings that the Pres Odopehead referred to were committed with an "automatic" weapon, and any person that actually WAS in the military would know that most of the weapons owned by Americans are "semi-automatic" , so you are for banning MOST if not ALL weapons...we could go on about your ignorance but who has the time , dinner is ready

M-16/AR-15...ooops

I am the Fox- right back at ya. My agenda? To save innocent peoples lives. Whats yours?

I must have missed the lefty Chavez's crying about the guns and killings going on in the home state AND the soouthside of Chicago that Obonehead was the SENATOR , you know the home of Feisty Mouth Piece the CESSPOOLOF ILLINOIS

oh , and Osocialist is STILL asking for campaign donations ON THE BACKS of these tragic victims...using his lame azz speech (photo op) to collect money

2 DONATE buttons straight to the "campaign" , what is he campaigning for!...disgusting , like most lefties

NOT A SINGLE LIFE WOULD HAVE BEEN SAVED. Damn I mean damn people are stupid. I am still waiting for some LWNJ to explain how banning semi-automatic rifles with certain combinations of parts or limiting mag size would have saved a single life in Newtown (1994 "ban"). If he would have used the semi-automatic 9mm handguns even limited to 10 round mags he WOULD HAVE KILLED THE SAME NUMBER OF PEOPLE. As many others have stated only law abiding citizens follow the rules and 9mm handguns would not be effected by any of these stupid rules.

It takes 2 or 3 seconds to change a mag, that is it. Forcing him to reload 5 - 8 times instead of two would only add 18 seconds worth of time. IT TOOK 10 MINUTES FOR THE POLICE TO GET THERE. WTF is 18 seconds going to really do in the grand scheme of things? NOT A DAMN THING.

Newsflash morons, but people will buy enough mags to hold the number of bullets they want. Instead of carrying ten 30 round mags for a total of 300 rounds, he would carry thirty 10 round mags FOR THE EXACT SAME NUMBER OF ROUNDS. YOU STUPID LAWS DO NOTHING BUT TO HURT LAW ABIDING CITIZENS. I like having 15-20 rounds in something semi-auto at a minimum for packs of feral hogs myself or even dogs. The last F***ING thing I want is to run out of ammo when I NEED it the most. I followed the laws why punish me? (Also I cannot store most mags fully loaded without wearing out the springs faster then if I leave out some rounds further reducing capacity when I NEED it. 9 in a 10 round mag, 18 in a 20 round mag, or 27 in a 30 round mag is the norm.)

Yet another newsflash for the morons. The death toll would not have been so bad had they not been trapped inside the classrooms. If they could have RAN, many more lives would have been saved. Much harder to hit a moving target instead of a cornered one that is standing still. Once again NO MATTER WHAT GUN HE HAD PEOPLE WERE GOING TO DIE. Putting children in a locked building without ANY kind or security is a recipe for disaster.

How long have drugs been outlawed in this country? Why can I still buy drugs in this country and WTF do you morons think will happen if you try to outlaw guns? ARE YOU REALLY THAT F***ING STUPID to think that guns would not come in from another country? How can we have a discussion when you are f***ing stupid and cannot understand logic. If there is a demand and money to be made, someone will supply that demand. The only difference would be that criminals would end up having more guns then law abiding citizens. We will never be able to get rid of all guns, stop being stupid and waste your energy on something better. I will repeat it for those slow and special people out there, YOU WILL NEVER GET RID OF ALL THE GUNS IN THE WORLD.

Just to recap. If your stupid laws do not save lives then why bother? If they do not remove guns entirely then why bother? If crazy people can still get access to guns then why bother? Since knives, scissors, etc. cut people because they are sharp we should limit how sharp they can be. "If they were not so sharp, not as many people would get cut". Yes let us make the tool less effective to the point that it no longer works, that will fix all our problems... A gun is a tool, nothing more and nothing less.

If you only have the money to buy only one gun, a semi-auto rifle cambered in .223/5.56mm is one of the best all around guns there is next to maybe a semi-automatic shotgun. I bought my American made AR/AK hybrid for the same price as most handguns and the ammo costs about the same (cheap). It has as much muzzle energy as a .44 magnum handgun, but has a much flatter trajectory at longer ranges meaning I could hunt with it IF I EVER NEEDED TO.

Given the same barrel length of 16 inches a 225 grain hollow-point .44 magnum round going 1500 fps (faster then most handguns by approx. 300 fps) will drop 10 inches at 100 yards, 46 inches at 200 yards, and 118 inches at 300 yards. Compared to a .223 at 3000 fps with a 55 grain bullet would drop 2.3 inches at 100 yards, 10 inches at 200 yards, and 24 inches at 300 yards. The faster the bullet travels the less you have to compensate for bullet drop. Are any of you stupid laws going to prevent me from getting a semi-automatic handgun (which is just as deadly at close ranges) with a longer barrel and a stock? NO THEY WOULD NOT.

(Why do we not limit the speed that automobiles travel at to say 55 MPH, and how many lives could we save INCLUDING THOSE OF CHILDREN? How much lives, gas, insurance, wear and tear on roads, and money could be saved? Yet you morons want to talk about gun control.../sigh)

Devie,

You do realize that these "assault" weapons weren't any different than a semi-automatic deer rifle?

A world without guns....hmmmm...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Land_fire

...85 dead without a gun.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vlad_the_Impaler

...80,000 dead without a gun.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_people_did_Jack_the_Ripper_kill

...5-23 dead without a gun.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Bundy

...30-36 dead without a gun.

If we could snap our fingers and get rid of EVERY gun I would snap my fingers right now and take my chances! But the horse has left the barn and she ain't coming back.

phillyfan

how about you work on cleaning up the garbage pit called Philly , then worry about telling others what to do , the best thing that could happen to Philly would be about 45 out of control bulldozers turning that sh!thole under

According to FBI statistics, there were 592 accidental gun deaths in 2008. During the same year, there were 265 "justifiable" gun homicides by people using a gun for self defense.

So, in an effort to "protect" themselves with a gun, more than TWICE the number of people who used a gun for protection were killed by a gun on accident.

I can't help but laugh at those people. Using their "self defense" excuse, MORE people were killed on accident than those who actually used a gun in self defense. I don't think they make enough Darwin awards for all those people.

Source: FBI statistics

Oh, and for those of you "good Americans" (I use that term loosely) who believe you need guns for your 2nd Amendment right to overthrow a tyrannical government...

Let me get this straight. Not only are you preparing to "overthrow" the government of the United States of America, if need be... but you are preparing to "overthrow" a government which has the single largest military on the planet. A military that YOU voted to fund more than the combined budget of every other country.

So you stupid hicks actually believe that your pathetic group of drunken NASCAR buddies, armed with AR-15 rifles, will stand a snow-balls chance in hell against the single largest military on the planet?

Tell me, all you genius, Coors light drinking, rednecks... which gun are you planning to use against a predator drone? Or, better yet, which little pea shooter are you planning to use against the Active Denial System tank?

Personally, I would pay good money to see any of your pathetic little militias even try to go against the government. It would be absolutely hilarious.

You voted to create the strongest, most advanced military on the planet, controlled by a government you hate... and now you think that your little militia, with your stock-piled guns, has the slightest chance of standing up to that same military?

I know rednecks are not the brightest people, but jesus f***ing christ. You can not be serious? Hahahahahaha

Let no disaster go to waste obama is running true to form.

ProIndividual - post 1.120 is only good in your mind because YOU posted it. It holds no value.

You're right...the actual FACTS and STATS have no value. Willful ignorance seems to be your counter argument. Care to post any conflicting stats? Nope, because there aren't any.

It's not a small number, especially compared to other countries. For example, the number of firearms murders in the U.S. per 100,000 population (3.7) is 92.5 times that of the U.K., and 185 times that of Japan. We're 14th in the world, right after Zimbabwe, and the only industrialized country in the top 20.

Over 30,000 people in the U.S. die from the use of firearms every year, 96% of which are intentional and including 60% of all homicides by any cause.

Gun safety regulations are not punishment, and are long overdue.

Spare us the NRA propaganda. Enough is enough.

Actually it is a small number...using relativity isn't a good argument. Objectively only .026% of American gun owners murders someone with a gun (99.974% do not murder anyone). The flu kills 33,000 people while guns murdered less than 13,000. Rational people are afraid more of what kills them more, or is more likely to kill them.

Guns are very low threat to life in this country...less than the flu and cars. How afraid are you of the flu and cars?

Also, I pointed out another fact, that you ignored or refused to read, that shows England has nearly double the gun murder rate as Canada, and Canada has MORE guns per capita that USA. So guns are clearly not CAUSAL to gun murder. You clearly didn't read my whole post. Your reservations were destroyed before you printed them.

There is no transnational COROLLARY or CAUSAL relationship between a nation's gun ownership rates, total guns in society, or permits to carry guns and the GUN MURDER RATE (the population divided by the total gun murders). What IS corollary and causal is the DRUG WARS these countries wage or do not wage (less Drug War = less gun murder).

Go back and tread the Harvard Law and Public Policy study I linked to (you know, the school Obama went to?).

The 30,000 gun DEATHS are irrelevant. 2600 of them were legal self defense, half were suicides that no credible psychologist suggests were preventable (people who jump from bridges or shoot themselves in the head are not crying for help, they are serious attempts to die), and 1000 were accidents (bicycles and swimming pools kill more people than guns). What you're left with is gun murder...of which about 70% were commited by criminals, and most of those (about 70% of the 70%) were drug related. End the Drug War and you just ended most of the gun murders AND suicides (suicide rates are lower in nations with looser gun restrictions and highert in nations with more gun restrictions).

Facts are pesky things.

And again, as the studies I linked to showed, nations with more gun control actually have HIGHER murder rates as a general rule. The top 8 gun control nations vs the bottom 8 gun rights nations have a 3 times higher murder rate collectively.

Gun regulations cannot solve the probem because the guns are not CAUSAL, logically, to gun murder rates...while Prohibition of drugs are.

This isn't debatable unless you want show me non-cherry picked stats from full-on studies of either all counties in the USA, county by county, State by State, and transnational studies with all recogtnized nations included....because that's what I presented. You need, in rational discussion that uses logic, conflicting evidence....not anecdotes that are easily disproven inside the latrger studies.

And F the NRA..I'm not white, so I don't particularly like them. They a racist history, n case you'tre unaware. You do realize most gun owners aren't in the NRA, right? But thanks for the informal logical fallacy...an ad hominem attack (attacking the debater or the source of the stats, not the debate or stats themselves).

Does anyone want to use logic and rwason (and actual studies and statistical facts) to discuss this? Or is everyone going to half read what I wrote and go about using informal logical fallacies to make their "case" because they have nothing else? Enough cherry picking stats...show me large studies done that show less guns are causal to less crime.

Because England's gun crimes have soared under their gun control regime by 35%. So much for your theory...

Pat Boston - I assume you are not a moron. Name an instance where a gun, knife, club or even a car decided to kill someone. The reason liberals will not discuss root cause (people) of these shootings but rather jump straight to gun control is because they want gun elimination. Our Constitution did not recognize our natural right to arm ourselves so we could hunt, rather to allow us to protect ourselves from criminals and governments.

This debate is not about stats, theories or anything other than the right to keep and bear arms is natural and any government that wants to infringe on that right has a hidden agenda. When troubleshooting (no pun intended) a failed system (a citizen shoots a bunch of other citizens or a machine process starts producing bad parts) the way to find root cause is to go back to the point at which it was not in error and look for what changed. These events are relatively new and if we follow this process perhaps we can get to real answers.

"I sympathize with people who want to ban guns, but I can't agree with them. We have to be careful in our zeal to abolish guns that we don't wind up with counter-productive legislation that will leave armed only the people most likely to do harm with them."

To ban guns because criminals use them is to tell the innocent and law-abiding that their rights and liberties depend not on their own conduct, but on the conduct of the guilty and the lawless, and that the law will permit them to have only such rights and liberties as the lawless will allow... For society does not control crime, ever, by forcing the law-abiding to accommodate themselves to the expected behavior of criminals. Society controls crime by forcing the criminals to accommodate themselves to the expected behavior of the law-abiding.

Laws that forbid the carrying of arms disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.

"The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun."

EDIT: This isn't debatable unless you want show me non-cherry picked stats from full-on studies of either all counties in the USA, county by county, State by State, and transnational studies with all recognized nations included....because that's what I presented. You need, in rational discussion that uses logic, conflicting evidence....not anecdotes that are easily disproven inside the larger studies they are apart of.

And F the NRA..I'm not white, so I don't particularly like them. They have a racist history, in case you're unaware. You do realize most gun owners aren't in the NRA, right? But thanks for the informal logical fallacy...an ad hominem attack (attacking the debater or the source of the stats, not the debate or stats themselves).

Does anyone want to use logic and reason (and actual studies and statistical facts) to discuss this? Or is everyone going to half read what I wrote and go about using informal logical fallacies to make their "case" because they have nothing else? Enough cherry picking stats...show me large studies done that show less guns are causal to less crime.

None of my info came from the NRA, BTW...it came from Bing search engine (population numbers and gun murders total, along with gun owners by nation), the CDC, DOJ, FBI websites, and studies done by Universities. I also used a few other sources that were linked, and a couple of BBC articles I did not link to.

If @!$%# hits the fan - guess who I am going to zero in on? I gurantee I can get to him before he can sling that rifle around and get a shot off.

LMFAO MIKE 416. You Effing Mall Ninja's are dime a dozen. I bet you sit in front of the mirror with a tactical vest and dual wield your Glock 17's. Im sure common vernacular for Mikey Boy here is Fatal Funnel, operator and hostiles.

Enjoy your bell tower Lee Harvey. Morons like you give responsible gun owners a bad name

Capt: In addition to your list, this little nugget from Yayhoo!

Mass school bombing in 1927 puts Sandy Hook in context

ProIndividual: Awesome posts!

Morons like you give responsible gun owners a bad name

Actually Lanza's mother gives people like you a bad name. Remind me, how did owning guns for self defense work out for her?

Allen - "

I don't know, maybe it is a silly logic, but taking the standard GOP talking point on guns and violence/death and putting in another realm, if guns don't kill people, people kill people, I'm not certain why they would not be able to say the same with how they feel about abortion. Abortions don't kill...people kill.

And if on the gun side the position, the general approach is 'let's stand back and wait and see before we do anything rash', why do 'conservatives' feel the need to move so quickly when dealing with legislation to ban abortion?

I am not going to offer you the same benefit of doubt that I did for Pat, your statements would reveal me as pandering. Yes, people who have abortions are killing other people. I do not believe anyone who opposes abortion believes otherwise. Where do you get the idea that conservative positions on abortion are positions reached "so quickly"? I think the abortion issue is a few years old.

Weaser Augustus ....

You Effing Mall Ninja's are dime a dozen

For once, I agree with something you post. The shooting here in Salt Lake at a mall was devastating first because of the death toll and secondly because of what it did to the mall. It's a literal ghost town now as people can't bring themselves to go there because of the memories. I'm so sick of the little ninja wanna bes that have spent their entire youth doing nothing but becoming top rated on World of War Crack or Halo!

There is NO need to have assault rifles and or large capacity magazines in the hands of the general public. Period. Not for hunting (Need distance? Use a .308; Elephants? Not here in the U.S. and besides, they're protected and come with a $10,000-$20,000 fine); Rhinos? Use a "Big Bore Rifle", although there aren't any rhinos running around loose here in the U.S. The only reason to own an assault rifle is just for "fun" or people intent on killing a lot of people in a short period of time.

Aspergers? NOT given to maniacal or violent acts. There was definitely something amiss within the synapses of Adam Lanza's brain--but it wasn't the aspergers. I mean, who knows if he actually had aspergers? Maybe he was misdiagnosed? Maybe his medications (if he was on any) was the culprit. We automatically assume that he was deranged because "normal" people don't shoot their mother and children and then themselves. Or do they?

There is NO need to have assault rifles and or large capacity magazines in the hands of the general public

Except if we need to overthrow a tyrannical and genocidal government...which was the entire purpose behind the 2nd Amendment. How many Founders can you quote saying the right to keep and bear arms was about hunting, self defense, or sport shooting? None. How many can I quote that say it was for cases where revoluton was required to save the people from the state? All of them.

The fact people can hunt with them, use them to defend themselves or property, and can have fun sport shooting with them is just a bonus use.

And an elephant gun is classically a 2-guage shotgun, not an assault rifle.

And one last thing..how many of you anti-gun folks are calling for guns and use of our military/funding to help Syrians and Libyans overthrow their governments? Hmmmmm.

I wonder if the founding fathers and all the others who fought the revolutionary war would have preferred to be even lesser armed than the enemy than they were? Since they put the 2nd amendment in to protect the people from aggressors, I doubt it.

Capt: In addition to your list, this little nugget from Yayhoo!

Mass school bombing in 1927 puts Sandy Hook in context

ProIndividual: Awesome posts!

Thanks...I appreciate that. And good post for you as well. That was such a tragedy. Sick people do sick things. The worst part about that was he had enough junk laying around his land to pay off the taxes...not that taxes are cool, but still. Why would anyone make a tax protest into a mass murder? Sick people...so sad.

These add perspective too:

http://www.infowars.com/armed-citizen-not-police-prevented-massacre-in-oregon/

http://www.kennesawcommunication.com/2012/01/22/gun-town-usa-kennesaw-gun-law-shoots-down-crime/

http://theacru.org/acru/harvard_study_gun_control_is_counterproductive/

Except if we need to overthrow a tyrannical and genocidal government..which was the entire purpose behind the 2nd Amendment. How many Foundetrs can you quote saying the right to keep and bear arms was about hunting, self defense, or sport shooting? None. How many can I quote that says it was for cases where revoluton were required to save the people from the state? All of them.

Bwahahahahahahaha

So, Mr. Pro Individual... you ACTUALLY believe that people like YOU will be able to overthrow our government, if they become "tyrannical"?

YOU, a Republican, who supports the party of increased military spending, have helped create the strongest and most advanced military on the planet. Your votes have created the largest military, with the most advanced weapons, and a larger budget than all other countries combined.

And now you ACTUALLY believe that you, and your little drunken NASCAR fan militia, will be able to stand up against this military might... with a few assault rifles?

You have said some stupid things in the past, but I think this is... by far... the absolute dumbest, most delusional idea that you have ever had. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

So, what do you do? Go through scenes of Red Dawn in your mind? Maybe you pretend to be Die Hard, shouting catch phrases as you take down a "tyrannical government". Do you and your little friends practice in the forest? Hold drills? Do shoulder rolls with your guns? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

So tell me, big tough guy. Which rifle are you going to use against predator drones? What gun are you going to pull out, when the Active Denial System rolls down your street and burns off the top layer of your skin?

Look at you... you little keyboard Rambo, acting all tough and talking about taking down a tyrannical government. It must be nice living in your little dream world. But the rest of us in REALITY know that you, and that little circle jerk you call a militia, do not stand a snow-balls chance in hell at taking on the US government and it's military might.

But keep fantasizing, it's gives us someone to laugh at.

JMagnum: Bad news, bud. Elephants are still LEGALLY hunted in Africa. There's only a fine when they are being poached. {Personally, I think it would be better on the old bar-b-que... lame humor} The LEGAL hunting is done to keep the herds in top condition and to minimize the conditions that breed disease. And the meat from these hunts are used to feed the local populations. They also hunt Kudu, Impala, Water Buffalo, for the same reasons, as well as the big cats.

As pointed out earlier, high cap mags are NOT a significant problem as most mags take your average, competent marksman less than 3 seconds (on a bad day) to change out.

As defined by the law, an "Assault Rifle" is capable of automatic fire via a select switch/lever.

As defined by the media & anti-gunners, an "assault rifle" is ANY rifle that looks mean & dangerous...

"Logic dictates that if Pro-gunners are as violent as Anti-gunners say the are, there wouldn't be any anti-gunners left..." -- Unknown

"The beauty of the second amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it." -- Thomas Jefferson

"Gun Free Zones are simply an invitation to the criminal element. To them, it's just like shooting fish in a barrel..." -- Me

"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." - William Pitt

"I prefer dangerous freedom to peaceful slavery." -- Thomas Jefferson

Lameton I think you agree with me for the wrong reasons, your boy Mall Ninja Mike is on your side btw.

ProIndividual-3906907

There is NO need to have assault rifles and or large capacity magazines in the hands of the general public

Except if we need to overthrow a tyrannical and genocidal government...

the Libs dont want to overthrow their tyrannical genocidal government, they embrace. Morons dont understand the SECOND AMENDENT wasnt just thrown in there for shlts and grins.

I love how the libtards like to punish the masses because of the actions of a few.

From Wiki.answers

According to Dr. Gary Kleck, criminologist at Florida State University in Tallahassee and author of "Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America," a book used by many in the gun debate, 800,000-2,500,000 crimes are stopped by guns each year. The numbers are from different studies.

Interesting Statistics:

There were over 19,000 deaths by accidental drug overdose in 2004. The majority of these deaths were from prescription drugs, not illegal drugs. Banning prescription drugs makes as much sense as banning guns.

Regarding accidental shooting deaths per year, that number is in the 14,000-17,000 range. Over 100,000,000 guns are owned in America.

Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_crimes_are_stopped_by_gun_owners#ixzz2FSM044We

The 2nd amendment has nothing to do with "hunting" it has to do with the right to defend yourself. When it was written it was written to address the British Colonial Monarchy which had a single King ruling over his subjects. It's intent was to acknowledge that individuals not just kings had an already existing right to defend themselves.

The founders wrote the 2nd amendment to secure that right, and to ensure that no king could ever “rule” over subjects in America. That’s made clear by this quote:

Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretence, raised in the United States. A military force, at the command of Congress, can execute no laws, but such as the people perceive to be just and constitutional; for they will possess the power, and jealousy will instantly inspire the inclination, to resist the execution of a law which appears to them unjust and oppressive.

---Noah Webster, An Examination of the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution (Philadelphia 1787).

mguy - A bunch of ragtag colonists poorly armed and poorly equipped managed to beat the greatest military power on earth at the time. Yes, I believe an armed citizenry can keep us free even against the US government.

Sorry about that Weaser ... and how would you know who is truly on my side?

ProIndividual ...

Except if we need to overthrow a tyrannical and genocidal government...which was the entire purpose behind the 2nd Amendment. How many Founders can you quote saying the right to keep and bear arms was about hunting, self defense, or sport shooting? None. How many can I quote that say it was for cases where revoluton was required to save the people from the state? All of them.

Takes more than a gun to overthrow anything. It takes a brain. Your posts are sorely lacking any kind of thought other than those that are voiced in Northern Idaho. If you're seriously "stocking up" to overtake the government, well, punkin, that tinfoil hat is on super tight. I hope to God you are not my neighbor or associated with any that I care about. You post some scary sh!t.

George Washington said:

"A free people ought not only be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government."

Isoroku Yamamoto - "You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind each blade of grass."

There is an evil force that wants to disarm America. They are willing to kill kids to get this accomplished. Who is the greatest killer of kids?????

ProIndividual said:

Except if we need to overthrow a tyrannical and genocidal government...which was the entire purpose behind the 2nd Amendment.

Are you a Cartoon? When was the last time America needed to "overthrow" a tyrannical and genocidal government here on our OWN soil? Jesus H. Christ on a raft, PIndividual, don't be a TOOL.

@Physicist-retired

... What? Bushmaster is a brand. Anything a civilian can get their hands on from them is a semi-automatic, direct gas impingement operated rifle.

I don't understand why it's even in this argument. Lanza didn't even use his rifle in the shooting. They found it in the trunk of his car. He killed all those children with handguns.

@tim-2799493

Those countries have firearm bans so of course firearm related homicides would be higher in the US. The statistics are also skewed as most of data include suicide. If you look at violent crimes (armed robberies, assault, rape, etc) in the UK, it is actually quite a bit higher per capita than the US.

@dirp

Guns are tools for some people just like the bow and arrow was for people in the past. These people rely on their gun to put food on the table.

Guns for me are a form of hobby. Some people enjoy throwing darts, others enjoy shooting targets.

@bobyoung-1427396

I am a gun owner and the car comparison is getting old. Cars have other uses. Most people use a car in order to fulfill their daily lives. Guns do not fill this role.

@devie

Civilian "assault rifles" are semi-automatic. The most common ones shoot 5.56x45mm. It has similar terminal ballistics as a 30-30, which is the premier caliber for deer hunting. AR-15s are also lauded as have the best ergonomics seen in modern rifles. But it is illegal to hunt in most areas with an AR-15 because of the small caliber of bullet it fires.

mguy - One more thought, ill-equipped Afghans drove Russia (a mighty military power) out of their country (and it seems they are doing the same to us).

A bunch of ragtag colonists poorly armed and poorly equipped managed to beat the greatest military power on earth at the time. Yes, I believe an armed citizenry can keep us free even against the US government.

Philipqb

Those "ragtag colonists" possessed similar weaponry at the time. They were going up against a military power with the same type of guns, horses, etc.

Things are a little different now. Your little ragtag militia may have assault rifles, and your entire group can be blown the f*** up with one button on a drone.

You are NOT ragtag colonists going up against England, you are the taliban... with your little assault rifles, home-made bombs, and hiding spots. How do they fare against the US military? You think you will be any different? They have jets and drones, you have your hand-held guns. They have tanks, you have a Ford pick-up. They have satellite imaging, you have binoculars. They have advanced weaponry that can burn off the top layer of your skin off, you have a Coors light.

You are no colonist fighting for your freedom against an army with similar weaponry... you are an angry religious fanatic, mad that your team lost the election, and dreaming of using your little guns to overthrow a government and force your religious ideology on everyone. You are delusional, and lost in a fantasy action movie where you think a group of drunken rednecks can stand up to the might of the US military. You have no chance of ever winning that fight... and I'm willing to bet you don't have the balls to even try. So you just sit there at your computer, you little keyboard Rambo, and keeping talking about something you will NEVER do.

Layton - I am from N. Idaho and am not only intelligent, am educated and have a 6 figure income. I am also a gun owner and a strong advocate of our 2nd amendment rights. I am trying to figure out the nature of your comment. ProIndividual only stated fact. The fact that you can't see beyond your Mother's basement window does not invalidate his statements regarding the purpose of the 2nd. As I see it, the O admin has brought us closer to the point of true exercise of the 2nd than any other admin in our history. Four more years will tell.

I love seeing this Layton chic critiquing other posters , that's like a 5 year old critiquing an adult , futile and quite rediculous. A short perusal of her posts is like a trip down dimwit lane.

phillipqb ..

I am from N. Idaho and am not only intelligent, am educated and have a 6 figure income. I am also a gun owner and a strong advocate of our 2nd amendment rights. I am trying to figure out the nature of your comment.

1. ) Well, if you're from Northern Idaho you're certainly aware of the White Supremist movement there.

2.) You seem educated from your posts. I'll give you that.

3.) a 6 figure income ... an annoymous poster bragging about his/her income. Not believing that one at all.

4.) My mother's basement window? Get your own quotes and thoughts. My mother lives in her own home as do I.

5.) The Second Amendment was NOT written for assault rifles and 30 round clips. It states a right to bear arms. This country can certainly decide what arms you can bear. Just as we decide who can vote and who cannot.

6.) The Obama administration has done nothing to encourage tyranny. All of the crazy RWNJ poster-boys have. Rush would run like the wind if he ever had to do something that shoot off his trap.

7.) Four more years will tell .... that again, the GOP is fractured and will again not have a viable candidate.

John Athondoe ...

I love seeing this Layton chic critiquing other posters , that's like a 5 year old critiquing an adult , futile and quite rediculous

Futile towards you ... ridiculous ...well, just a thought .. if you're going to insult another poster, spell your insult correctly.

Are you a Cartoon? When was the last time America needed to "overthrow" a tyrannical and genocidal government here on our OWN soil? Jesus H. Christ on a raft, PIndividual, don't be a TOOL.

When's the last time you needed a First Aid kit? But you have one don't you?

When you resort to name calling it only goes to show that you have nothing worthwhile to say.

mguy - First, you do not know me (or my religious or non-religious beliefs), so don't pretend that you do. Just for reference, I am not a redneck and I hate NASCAR and WWF. In regards to your Taliban reference, please see the later post. All you have done is support the idea that any ban on any weapon (tanks, jet fighters, nuclear weapons) put the freedom of the people at risk. Is that what you meant? As far as balls are concerned, I could say the same for you but it is meaningless since we are sitting at computers typing in whatever, but I have been through a scale of life that few have experienced and I am still here. Never do? I stood between my mother and my step father, who had a cocked .38, and dared him to do what he felt needed doing. Somehow I think wet pants would have been your outcome. By the way my mother lived several years after.

Four Points Shy Of Genius

Honest question, are you trying to convince US or YOURSELF, dumb @!$%#?? Please, by all means, DO NOT stretch what groin muscle you may have left, patting yourself on your yellow back...

You may want to rethink your moniker to; Four Points Shy of ANY Common Sense, scum-bag!

YOU and your ilk are impotent little boys who could NOT get lucky in a whorehouse with a fist full of hundreds...

Meanwhile, douche-bags like yourself, keep us loony, leftards, entertained... LMAO@U little buddy!

Layton - Believe it or not doesn't really matter to me, it wasn't about bragging but about credibility.

I'll give you the basement window, sorry attempt at satirical humor.

The 2nd was written to protect the rest of the rights. Any infringement jeopardizes that ability (note mguy post).

Nothing to encourage tyranny? GM takeover. Increased regulation. Huge deficits (not that others haven't increased them, but look at a graph). Increased Government support of the populace. Obamacare (you don't think the government in control of your health care is tyranny?). There's a few.

Pat Boston - You are such an idiot, but it is to be expected since you are a libtard. All you cry babies that want to get rid of guns, guns are bad, guns kill people... Lets see how you fare when a robber or rapist comes crawling through your window in the middle of the night. Oh, you'll call the police??? Yeah, they will get there long after he is done doing whatever he wants to you (that is if you even get to call).

You libtards are idiots if you think a gun ban will stop guns from being in the wrong people's hands. Criminals can get guns anytime they please. No background checks, no waiting period, ect. Hell, look at your stupid leader obama's handling of Fast & Furious. He just gave assault weapons to criminals and drug cartels.

The only way you will ever stop these types of tragedies from happening is make sure there is someone around to take out the perpetrator.

Bwahahahahahahaha

So, Mr. Pro Individual... you ACTUALLY believe that people like YOU will be able to overthrow our government, if they become "tyrannical"?

YOU, a Republican, who supports the party of increased military spending, have helped create the strongest and most advanced military on the planet. Your votes have created the largest military, with the most advanced weapons, and a larger budget than all other countries combined.

And now you ACTUALLY believe that you, and your little drunken NASCAR fan militia, will be able to stand up against this military might... with a few assault rifles?

You have said some stupid things in the past, but I think this is... by far... the absolute dumbest, most delusional idea that you have ever had. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

So, what do you do? Go through scenes of Red Dawn in your mind? Maybe you pretend to be Die Hard, shouting catch phrases as you take down a "tyrannical government". Do you and your little friends practice in the forest? Hold drills? Do shoulder rolls with your guns? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

So tell me, big tough guy. Which rifle are you going to use against predator drones? What gun are you going to pull out, when the Active Denial System rolls down your street and burns off the top layer of your skin?

Look at you... you little keyboard Rambo, acting all tough and talking about taking down a tyrannical government. It must be nice living in your little dream world. But the rest of us in REALITY know that you, and that little circle jerk you call a militia, do not stand a snow-balls chance in hell at taking on the US government and it's military might.

But keep fantasizing, it's gives us someone to laugh at.

All your condescencion does nothing but show your ego.

There are 40-60 MILLION gun owners in this country...and only a few hundred thousand active soldiers. Plus, how many soldiers would defect in a revolution (if history is any judge, anywhere from a third to half - or more) with guns, grenades, bombs, planes, tanks, and nukes? The remainer of them seeing fit to stand with the state against the people the state is supposedly there to serve will find themselves in a logistical nightmare when trying to re-supply, find anywhere to call safe for the night, etc.

It is far more logical and reasonable to think the military is incapable of taking over the USA by force than it is to think the people are incapable of fending them off.

I'll quote what I already wrote, Mr. "bwaahahaha":

The fact is the Founders are easily quotable, and NONE said the right to own a gun was about self defense, hunting, or sports...it was about stopping tyranny. We need assault rifles to do that...and those rifles can be easily made fully automatic if that time ever comes. If you think the majority of the military will kill their own citizens, or that nuking a nation leaves the govt with a nation to rule, or that 40-60 million gun owners have no logistical chance of beating a military of a few hundred thousand, you're not thinking it through very well. Defecting members of the military will supply patriots with planes, tanks, bombs, etc...so it's not like overthrowing a tyrannical genocidal state would be impossible.

The Soviet Union sure broke apart without being stopped by their genocidal state, largely thanks to economics and a black market that supplied weapons, and to soldiers who defected to tthe other side in order to NOT kill their own people, taking tanks, guns, bombs, nukes, and planes with them.

Egypt's military decided to play mostly a neutral role in their revolution. Syria's army has been outgunned. How many examples do you need that a relatively small military (compared to a domestic population) has no chance in a domestic revolution? Remember, our Civil War was NOT a revolution, and really wasn't even a civil war in classic sense (they tried to withdraw from the union, it wasn't two waring factions during an attemprted coup/takeover for established monopolized authority).

Our own revolution was full of a populace of untrained men and women who simply fought a guerilla war in most cases, and used toerrorism I might add, to drive out a well-trained occupying military (the British). They did this by letting our tiny professional military aided by our tiny, but twice the size of Washington's Contintental Army, milita fight battles, and then showering small arms fire upon the British during troop movements. They had no safe place to rest usually, and were constantly under fire. It ruined morale and left the British with a constant influx of wounded men. They would win a battle and then move elsewhere, only to lose more men in the troop movement than in battle!

We actually lost more battles in the Revolution than we won, and Washington himself refered to his men as the finest in retreat the world had ever seen...as they retreated a ton.

In Vietnam we won every battle, but lost the war.

In Afghanistan, a much less populace nation than us with much more primitive means and arms (many guns are homemade there), they are winning and will win the war. The Taliban lost, but in the end our military will not control and stop the Afghanis. Insurgency warfare is very hard to stop...precisly because you don't need to win battles to win a war.

Most of the military's equipment is useless against an insurgency effort. It's designed for conventional warfare. Drones, for example, cause more people to join the force against you than it does scare them or kill the into submission. Here is a soldiers thoughts:

American citizens are very smart on the national average (despite the stereotype). Regionally, america has had more exposure to history, science, media, ect, meaning that we are more likely to think DYNAMICALLY and SMART. we are more likely to group together and we have more means to do it. Guns are actually legal here and easy to get illegally. America is FULL of stores which are full of all kinds of chemicals to make high powered bombs out of. Citizens would be fighting on THEIR OWN TERRITORY; they know the land. they would be able to subvert the military's ability of 'power projection' (actively occupying land with military force) because there are no hard power projection platforms (in civilian speak that means things to shoot at that are big, recognizable, and obvious like tanks and planes and boats.

in short, civilians would win. but it would be very nasty before they did.

And that assumes they would even kill their own countrymen like Nazis did. Not likely.

In the end, even some veteran friends of mine, including a man who did 30 years Army and retired and then went into the Navy Sea Bees (CBs) and then retired from them too (total of over 50 years military), said the idea of a military takeover of the American populace would be a nightmare logisitically. They point out not only what I have already, but the inherent attitude of Americans to resist authority. It is figuratively in our DNA to resist being told what to do, and when no real justification can be given that satisfies us, we almost automatically subvert authority. Look at all the black markets for drugs! Despite increasing police-state measures over the years, and our super-strict drug laws (we are the most incarcerated nation on Earth, both per capita and in total) we have managed to consume more drugs than almost all other nations combined (like some 40% of drugs consumed are consumed here). Our population is 5% of the world, mind you.

Many people are ruled buy intuition...but reality is counter-intuitive and deductively logical.

Here's what one Founder thought:

Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretence, raised in the United States. A military force, at the
command of Congress, can execute no laws, but such as the people perceive to be just and constitutional; for they will possess the power, and jealousy will instantly inspire the inclination, to resist the execution of a law which appears to them unjust and oppressive.
---Noah Webster, An Examination of the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution, Philadelphia 1787).

http://www.guncite.com/gc2ndfqu.html

Jefferson thought revolutions were ugly but necessary, and even encouraged letting rioters riot instead being put down by the force of the military:

"The British ministry have so long hired their gazetteers to repeat and model into every form lies about our being in anarchy, that the world has at length believed them, the English nation has believed them, the ministers themselves have come to believe them, & what is more wonderful, we have believed them ourselves. Yet where does this anarchy exist? Where did it ever exist, except in the single instance of Massachusetts? And can history produce an instance of rebellion so honourably conducted? I say nothing of it's motives. They were founded in ignorance, not wickedness.God forbid we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, & always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. We have had 13 states independent 11 years. There has been one rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a century & a half for each state. What country before ever existed a century & half without a rebellion? & what country can preserve it's liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon & pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. It is it's natural manure. Our Convention has been too much impressed by the insurrection of Massachusetts: and in the spur of the moment they are setting up a kite to keep the hen-yard in order."

- To William S. Smith Paris, Nov. 13, 1787

So you display your ego to laugh at the very ideas this country was founded on, and the ideas men who know the abilities of the military better than you still understand. You also laugh in the face of history and current events...and we know what egos like that do people like you. It destroys them and leaves them left on the joke-side of hsitory.

Thank goodness revolutionaries throughout history didn't think like you, or we'd all be slaves to a single tyrant by now.

There are a lot of people here that agree with you and offer no evidence in retort.

Disarming America is the ultimate goal.

ProIndividual - I am humbled.

Phillipqb - You left out a few examples of tyranny:

- Enforces laws saying you can be detained, imprisoned and assassinated without trial or evidence.-
- Made it legal to wire tap and search Americans without a warrant.
- Is trying to take over the internet and censor it.
- Made and enforces laws saying you have no right for redress of grievances with the government except in "free speech zones".
- Removed Habeas corpus - Look it up.
- Removed Posse Comitatus – Look it up.
- Detained a Decorated Veteran for exercising his free speech on Facebook.
- Created a paramilitary force designed to irradiate or grope you at airports and is meet with swift and terrible vengeance if you don't "comply" in order to make you more obedient.
- Used Executive Order to circumvent the people and make their own laws.
- Has a secret kill list.
- Is funding and giving equipment to Al Qaeda in Syria.
- Is keeping us in a state of perpetual war.
- Has sent thousands of Americans to their death in the Middle East to make sure the Central bankers monopoly on the Dollar being a reserve currency in "Petro Dollars" isn't challenged, or that there's a new Central Bank in those countries that didn't have one.
- Says that the US Military only takes action if it gets approval from the UN – More a sovereignty issue.
- Filled there cabinets with former Goldman Sach's executives. – An example of Oligarchy
- Assassinated a 16 year old American Citizen with a drone attack meant specifically for him.
- Has the Military training with Foreign Troops on American soil for the purposes of "civil unrest".
- Is threatening the collapse of the dollar, thereby the global economy, therefore World War by printing (devaluing) money.
- Killed more children in drone attacks than were killed in this tragedy in countries the Congress hasn't declared war on (like Pakistan) several times over.

phillipqb ...

First ... I've vacationed at Sand Point, Idaho and found it lovely. Now ...

Discussion ... tyranny? really? The decreased regulation from Bush led us into a free fall and TARP. Huge deficits? Let's chit chat about unfunded wars. There were NO WMDs and yes, we are still paying for that. Obamacare ... why does that scare you? It's not about being in charge of your health .. good Lord, if that were the case, Michelle would have run that show. It is about outcomes and better use of monies for healthcare. If you think that isn't happening now, well, let me enlighten you. For the average therapist that receives government monies for treatment, about 15 minutes of every 45 minute appointment is asking questions to satisfy the grant monies they receive to prove that the work they do is viable. Same for Medicaid and Medicare. Everyone spews and spouts, but they don't deal with the States and the data they have to provide to get their monies.

Thanks for the chat. I'm seriously appreciative. Because the poster below you is an idiot.

tamug ...

You libtards are idiots if you think a gun ban will stop guns from being in the wrong people's hands

The only way you will ever stop these types of tragedies from happening is make sure there is someone around to take out the perpetrator.

I live in the West ... can shoot and ride a horse .. you? I'm thinking my libtard ass will fare better than yours if what you project comes to pass.

Layton - Believe it or not doesn't really matter to me, it wasn't about bragging but about credibility.

I'll give you the basement window, sorry attempt at satirical humor.

The 2nd was written to protect the rest of the rights. Any infringement jeopardizes that ability (note mguy post).

Nothing to encourage tyranny? GM takeover. Increased regulation. Huge deficits (not that others haven't increased them, but look at a graph). Increased Government support of the populace. Obamacare (you don't think the government in control of your health care is tyranny?). There's a few.

I's add the surveillance of USA citizens without any suspicion of a crime via drones and formerly illegal wiretaps, NDAA, PATRIOT Act, the Drug War making us the most incarcerated nation on Earth per capita and in total despite having a smaller population BY FAR that some countries we consider tyrannical, and the list goes on, and on, and on....

But I'm not in favor of violent revolution, to be clear. But if there comes a time some military comes to take me or mine off to a death camp I can assure you I won't go alive. Violent revolution is usually a bad idea...bit it is an option that acts as a deterent to tyrants. Unfortnunately most Americans are sheep just like sheep in Nazi Germany...they will cheerlead for the tyranny to come, whether social tyranny or economic tyranny (RepubliBloods and DemoCrips). And it will come eventually (maybe not in our lifetimes), because all nation-states have a life cycle. They all erode and die and fall into revolution time and again...it's just Chaos Theory, Game Theory, and Probability Theory at work in mathematics.

phillipqb

ProIndividual - I am humbled.

Agreed - nicely done.

Have at it boys .... enjoy your paranoia. I love the fact that you all love yourselves more than this country. I for one choose country first, people first, and how to love and serve them first. Bunker down . . . . sick of all of your lovefests of each other. Please tell me NONE of you accept a thing from the government. You don't drive on the interstates, visit National Parks, or have your children go to public schools.

Enjoy your hate of life. I'm certainly not enjoying your BS Paranoid posts.

The decreased regulation from Bush led us into a free fall and TARP

Actually the Federal Reserves bubble caused that. You don't get a burst bubble because of malinvestment in real estate without first having a central bank keep interest rates too low and money supply too high which causes that malinvestment (the blowing up of a bubble). Krugman even said that after the tech bubble burst (that they causes as well) that the FED needed to inflate a reali estate bubble to "cure it". But some still listen to Krugman despite the fact he didn't predict the real estate bubble that was about to burst, and either did almost any Keynesian or New Keynesian economist.

To fight this recession the Fed needs more than a snapback; it needs soaring household spending to offset moribund business investment. And to do that, as Paul McCulley of Pimco put it, Alan Greenspan needs to create a housing bubble to replace the Nasdaq bubble. --Krugman

And Bush didn't deregulate for Pete's sake. Either did Clinton or Reagan or the first Bush. In fact Bush II hired tens of thousands MORE regulators, and signed off on tens of thousands of pages of new regulations. Total regulation has gone up under every President since Grover Cleveland left office the 2nd time.

Punishing everyone in order to control the individual is a Communist Tactic.

Giving up our guns wont stop these attacks, especially if these attacks are designed to disarm the public. You dont think thats possible? Where are the killers of JFK? RFK? MLK? None of these killers were tried. Sirhan was a patsy just like Lee Harvey Oswald and James Earl Ray. When we dont force the government to tell the truth we open the door to the next black op. Each op is a test. A test to see if your awake, paying attention, and above all, what you are willing to do about it once you have the true facts.

The Conn. Attack was a terrorist attack, just like Aurora Co. Columbine etc. All are designed to bring forth new levels of gun control finally ending in total confiscation.

We must not give in to terrorism, No new gun laws. Not now, not tomorrow, not ever. NEVER AGAIN !!

Have at it boys .... enjoy your paranoia.

The paranoia is on the part of the anti-gun crowd. No nation-state ever lasted forever, in case you weren't aware. And what you guys call "common sense" has been refuted as paranoia that is irrational and illogical by studies and stats we've linked to...

...so where are your links to conflicting facts? The absence is telling...and what it tells is that we're bringing all the real intellectual arguments here, while you guys are calling us names, cherry picking stats that our studies already include, and making up straw man arguments to deter from the logical nature of what we're trying to explain to you.

The Conn. Attack was a terrorist attack

What a stretch...what was his political motivation exactly? Terrorism is politically motivated. JFC.

phillipqb

and

Four Points Shy Of Genius

It's nice to have allies trying to reason with these people even if they won't listen to a darn thing we're saying. In our efforts we show our true colors. Be proud of yourselves.

We are seeing so many murders daily that have nothing to do with mental illness

This is typical of the unsubstantiated tripe the know-nothing losers of the left attempt to use to steal our rights. It is really sickeningly pathetic. The stupidity is absolutely stunning.

I will choose what type of defense I have for myself and mine. That is one of my inalienable rights which the wannabe tyrants of the left have no say in. The lord and savior of the leftist cultists struts around with an army of armed men to protect him. When his children go out they have armed bodyguards ready to kill a fool who would threaten them. My life and the life of my family are more important to me than them. I will not have hypocrites such as Diane Feinstein, Harry Reid, and Barack Obama tell me how to protect my family.

Obama made a joke of himself (again) Sunday night. A one man idiot parade without a clue as to what he was talking about.

As a formidable critic of Barack Obama I stand with the President in regard to his heartfelt,sincere support for these devasted parents. That being said here it goes Libwad's. Why was the killing of these white people suddenly the sounding board for gun control? What about his Chicago home in Hyde Park,or Englewood,West Englewood, Chatam, South Shore,Roseland and other Black Communities? Those that have been grieving all along, mourning the loss of their innocent kids from gang crossfire? And yet showed up at the polls in droves to re-elect him? I'm sick and tired of hearing the bull$hit from Liberal's that the President has nothing to do with "state issues" so he's out of it. Oh yeah? Since when did he move to Conn? A very outspoken Liberal columnist,Mary Mitchell, in Chicago's Sun Times today stated,"she is buying a gun"! That was her response to not only this Conn. tragedy but to her well being on the streets of Barack Obama's home town! If the President was so quick to react to this now,where was he when so many children were slain in his hometown? What about it Bev,Fiesty,Seeking Sanity?

ProIndiviual, phillipqb, and Four ....

The Second Amendment was ratified in 1791. It was needed then. Not now. Talk about living in the past. We don't need a militia now. For you all to hold on to those beliefs, you are all part of the problem. Not part of a cure.

Pat Boston MA.

Oscar, I don't know what you're referring to.

Here, let me share one with you:

Sorry, the links were kicked out.

Pastor pulls gun on unsuspecting burglar
By Sam Penrod
December 18th, 2012 @ 6:36pm

OREM — Instead of reaching for his Bible, an Orem minister grabbed his handgun when a man high on drugs tried breaking into his church.

It is never a good idea to break into a house of worship, especially when the pastor's career before he was in the ministry was in law enforcement. But the man on drugs obviously didn't realize that until he was looking right at the laser sights of the pastor's handgun.

"It's a little different being a Baptist in Orem — where I'm from, it was a Baptist church on every street corner," said Pastor Robert Brooks.

Brooks moved to Utah from North Carolina three years ago to lead the Victory Baptist Church in Orem.

"We've enjoyed it. We've had a very good experience," he said. "For the most part, people have received us really well and we've enjoyed being able to minister here to the people."

In the middle of the night on Friday, though, Pastor Brooks, who lives with his young family in the basement of the church, was awakened by a ruckus outside, so he got up to see what was going on.

"He was at this door trying to beat into it and pull on it, and I came around the corner (and) was standing down there in the parking lot addressing him," Brooks said.

But Austin Stokes would not respond to the pastor's commands to stop, so Brooks pulled his gun.

He is welcome here anytime. We would love to minister to him.
–Robert Brooks

"The only thing I actually heard him say — when he saw the laser — was ‘Oh, no,' and then he began to comply," Brooks said. "I didn't know what he was, I didn't know what he was capable of doing and I knew with family downstairs, I wanted to keep them safe."

Orem police arrived within a couple of minutes and Stokes was taken to jail on charges of intoxication and dealing prescription drugs. Pastors Brooks says he has forgiven Stokes for the frightening situation he caused his family.

"He's safe, he can get some help now, and hopefully he will get the help he needs because of his addiction, and I am glad we didn't have to use any force," he said. "He is welcome here anytime. We would love to minister to him."

Pastor Brooks says he didn't bring up the incident during his sermon on Sunday, but again said he welcomes the suspect or anyone else having difficulty in their life, to join with him here.

The predictable call for more gun control by those who don't know squat about firearms, nor easily obtainable data on the matter, much of which emanates from the Fed's themselves, truly disgusts me. We've reached a tipping point where the majority of the populace has abrogated their individual responsibility and our collective rights as American citizens.

Mass shootings are tragic, but they are the act of a deranged a$$hole, not an inatimate object. I get that you're scared of the nasty looking guns, but I'm not willing to give up my rights because you are a wuss.

What a bunch of spineless whiners y'all are.............someday you will get what you want, but I'm willing to bet that it won't work out the way you think........... you won't be satisfied until we're all a buch of passifist pu$$ies. Sorry, I'm not going there without a fight.

The Dog

Layton-3733410

ProIndiviual, phillipqb, and Four ....

The Second Amendment was ratified in 1791. It was needed then. Not now. Talk about living in the past. We don't need a militia now. For you all to hold on to those beliefs, you are all part of the problem. Not part of a cure.

Not needed now?!?! What rock have you been sleeping under?

Time for a history lesson:

"The beauty of the second amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it." -- Thomas Jefferson

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government." -- Thomas Jefferson, 1 Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334

"If people let the government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny." -- Thomas Jefferson

"The great goal is, that every man be armed. Everyone who is able may have a gun." -- Thomas Jefferson

"As to the species of exercise, I advise the gun. While this gives [only] moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise, and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun, therefore, be the constant companion to your walks." -- Thomas Jefferson, (writing to his teenaged nephew)

"Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States. A military force, at the command of Congress, can execute no laws, but such as the people perceive to be just and constitutional; for they will possess the power, and jealousy will instantly inspire the inclination, to resist the execution of a law which appears to them unjust and oppressive." -- Noah Webster, An Examination of the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution (Philadelphia 1787).

"The rights of the individuals are restricted only to the extent that they have been voluntarily surrendered by the citizenship to the agencies of government." -- City of Dallas v Mitchell, 245 S.W. 944

"Liberty is given by nature even to mute animals." & "The more numerous the laws, the more corrupt the government." -- Gaius Cornelius Tacitus 56 - 117AD, Roman orator, lawyer, and senator

"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." -- Abraham Lincoln

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin

"A free people ought not only be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government." -- George Washington, First President of the united States

"Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws." -- Plato

"Throughout history, there have only been two groups of people that have never been allowed guns: Slaves and Conquered Nations. And which one are they trying to make us in America?" -- Sheriff Richard Mack

"Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it." -- George Santayana

The human race has been dealing with these problems for THOUSANDS of years!

Then there's that little matter of The Dick Act of 1902, in which the federal government acknowledges that States have both organized militias (National Guard) and UN-organized militias (the People). As an Ohioan, I have read Article IX of the Ohio Constitution and it states quite clearly that EVERYONE, both male and female, 17-67 are automatically part of the Ohio {unorganized} militia, like it or not. According to the Dick Act the federal government CANNOT confiscate anyone's guns... It is our right to defend ourselves, from invaders, both foreign and domestic.

Like two of the quotes above say:

"The beauty of the second amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it." -- Thomas Jefferson

"Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it." -- George Santayana

The Second Amendment was ratified in 1791. It was needed then. Not now.

Tell that to the citizens of Syria.

The left is so typical.

Typical uninformed, know-nothing, head-in-the-sand cultist drones hardly worthy of being deemed human.

It is needed more now than ever before, as are all of our Bill of Rights which the wannabe tyrants wish to usurp.

@ProIndividual-3906907

Thank you for being a reasonable poster not posting on emotion but with facts. Too
bad it is waste on a lot of people that cannot separate emotion from fact.

@Layton-3733410

Please
explain how it is out dated other than it is an old amendment. Lost time we
checked we still had a government even though it may not oppressive doesn't
mean it won't or can't happen. Just because a amendment/law hasn't been needed
doesn't mean it is useless, unless the objects within amendment/law no longer exist.
And the U.S. has citizens and a government. So by no means is the 2nd amendment
not needed.

I don't get it. I just don't get it...

I had to stop reading about 3/4th the way down this because it's the same stuff. Hating on guns or talk of bans on one side, and the other side defending itself. And from the story, it may as well have been "President Obama throws lefties a bone to shut them up."

Look, I'm all for responsible legislation. I am all for responsible weapons ownership. Can't we come up with better laws then simple bans? Can we do nothing more then harm the people who are responsible owners and purchasers? Can we do nothing about making sure that people who are buying or intending to buy are responsible purchasers?

I discussed this in another post. Ok, I said something about selective service being closed, I was wrong. Glad to still be human, not the point. The point is, you can still use my idea by openning up a indepenent section of Selective Service and maybe just give the person who is planning to purchase a weapon take the same training I was talking about, with the same instructor idea (Training NCOs who are exiting the military, former Special Forces personell exiting the military) and require 45 hours of training on the weapon you are planning to purchase. This course will focus on the areas of Weapons Safety, Weapons Cleaning, Weapons Security, and Marksmanship. The personell that you are staffing this place with will be the people who are the experts on weeding out those who are pretty unfit for military service, I think they could do a pretty good job of weeding out the people who don't need to have their hands on a fire arm. If you can't pass the course, you can't get a gun. PEROID!

You see kiddies, I'm for RESPONSIBILITY in ownership. They may be a right, but they are also a HUGE responsibility. And maybe that's more the point, and why we keep saying these people were "mentally unstable". Because that has become a thing of the past. When a drunk driver hits someone, we blame the booze. When a mass murderer kills people, we blame the guns. So we look the other way to solve the problems when the problem is the people.

Until we deal with the underlining problems in society at large (parents not parenting, police not chasing criminals (only minor aressts that they can make for say...simple possesion? the occational drunk driver), lack of dicipline and respect in children, severe lack of responsibility in young adults), these things will continue to happen. FACT: GUN FREE ZONES ONLY MAKE PLACES FOR PEOPLE WITH GUNS TO PREY ON THOSE WHO DO NOT HAVE THEM. FACT: THE BRADEY WEAPONS BILL DID NOT LOWER CRIME. FACT: LIMITING THE TYPES OF WEAPONS PEOPLE CAN LEGALLY BUY WILL ONLY HARM LEGAL BUYERS...NOT CRIMINALS!!

Before everybody decides to dump the second amendment, they should step back for a time and think. This tragic incident has gotten everyone's emotions all stirred up, which is to be expected. No laws should be put forth for at least 30 days. By then, calmer heads will prevail. Thank God it is the holidays, that will force a pause. The Forefathers put that second amendment in there for a reason. We need to think of that reason.

Right now, all this banning of guns talk has started a panic. I was just listening to the radio today and heard some people say it is "going down." They said to stockpile up on ammo as if to prepare for war. I think they mean it. They say guns are flying off the shelves. One thing is for sure, there will be more guns sold in the next few weeks than the last few years.

I do not like the idea of getting rid of the guns. If we become an unarmed population, that will open up to dictatorship. Guns is part of the balance. As long as people have guns, we won't likely get some dictator. Think of poor Europe right now. Several countries are under dictatorship right now, especially Greece. If that situation should befall us, I'd want an armed populace. No way do I want to become Greece.

I just think we need more rules about keeping guns locked up. That boy's mother should have had the guns locked up, as should everyone who has them. If they can have us put on seat-belts in our cars, they can have us lock up the guns. There is no need to take the guns away (unless they are secret dictators scheming). Another thing, why not have an armed security guard in every school just like they do at banks.

Hello folks, let's hope that we don't see an Executive Order bypassing the will of the people to deal with gun regulation. If Obama has the temerity to put forth an EO banning any kind of gun he is nothing more than a dictator. Let's see what he does!

My first rifle upon enlisting in the Army in 1962 was the M1-garrand semi-automatic of WWII vintage. It used an 8 round clip of 30-06 ammunition. In Germany I was issued an M-14 semi-automatic which was not enabled to fire in the full-automatic mode. The standard magazine could hold 20 7.62 mm NATO rounds and had great long distance accuracy. I believe both rifles can legally be used in the USA. The Bushmaster AR-15 used by Lanza was also a semi-automatic military style weapon using .223 caliber ammunition in 30 round magazines. Thus he was able to fire about 100 of the 200 rounds he brought with him in a very short period of time.

Legislation to limit the capacity of magazine sold to civilians in this country makes a lot of sense. In some countries they limit magazine capacity to two rounds plus one in the chamber. This sort-of goes against the trend in gun circles where high capacity magazines are popular.

Legislation could go like this. Chose a national limit of capacity, the old M1 8 round standard for example. Manufacture magazines with 8 round limitations. Fund a program that would require all civilian magazines of greater capacity to be exchanged at gun stores within a period of time. After that the possession of a magazine of greater capacity would be a violation of federal law.

So what is to prevent someone from doing similar carnage as done by Lanza with smaller capacity magazines? 210 rounds of ammunition could be carried in 7 30 round magazines. With an 8 round magazine he would have had to carry 25 magazines. He could of course carry fewer magazines and lots of ammo but he would have had to reload the magazines. It would have slowed him down.

Gun nuts, you're going to have to give something up on this one, make it large capacity magazines.

ProIndividual-3906907

1. You do realize you'd never get close enough, right? Long range weapon vs short range weapon..herp derp.

I hope you have eyes in the back of your head.

lol John, way to stick to the subject NITWIT!

Layton followed by numbers

attention Spelling Bee Champion...from your post : " an annoymous poster"

"annoymous" ?...note to bonehead , if you are going to post inane pablum and drivle AND ACT AS spelling monitor as your best retort , I would suggest that you issue a complaint about your liberal union grade school teacher for leaving you unprepared for the "job"

@ Tired:

You argue that limiting magazine size wouldn't have saved any lives. The problem with your argument is that it flies in the face of known facts.

Do you remember why Jared Lee Loughner only killed 6 people?

Look it up.

SeekingSanity;

Just because you live a sheltered life in your grandmother's basement, unless you're a soccer mom, it does not mean that others do. There's a reason that they issue ccw's (concealed weapon permits, for the uninformed like you) - To protect yourself and others in harm's way. While I've had the misfortune to use my weapon twice as a deterrent (with police records), I'm glad I did because the outcome would have been much different. Now, as for you, ESAD.

Hey, Oscar, do you still live in a garbage dump on Sesame Street? Fortuantely Sesame Street is in a nice neighborhood, you don't have to worry about violence.

instead of fighting over this issue just start shooting each other

You do have to worry about Elmo.

Fortuantely Sesame Street is in a nice neighborhood, you don't have to worry about violence.

No just homosexual pedophiles. Right Elmo???

Yeah, make some more jokes.

Oscar why don't you and the rest of you gun nuts shove that gun up your a$$ and blow your brains

out.

HEY FISTY IS THIS ONE OF THE TIMES WHERE THE LIBERALS CROSS THE LINE???!!

Oscar Rules

Maybe Manchin should get a referral from Plugs Biden for his hair???? Whadya think?!? ;-)

Oscar Rules,

I think you need to plug in some psychotropic drugs for your brain chemistry to function properly.

Hey Bev - Your from Obama's adopted hometown, maybe you can recite some of his gun legislation and how well it has worked in Chicago! Or is he a blowhard and Chicago has the most gun deaths in America? Which is it? Oh yeah, I almost forgot, which weekend did Chicago have over 50 shootings the President said nothing about?

My Wife is a Teacher, my mother is a teacher, my mother-in law is a teacher.

The safest thing to do is to spend money ON our school systems, and put a cop in EVERY school across america. We can give 8 billion dollars to Egypt, but we can't afford to secure our schools?

Yes, this is something that would take money, but wouldn't it make sense?

Just one...two for the bigger schools....just one or two police officers in every school, every school day.

What is wrong with that? We don't need to arm teachers. We don't need to trample on our constitutional right to own hand guns or rifles, (an unarmed civilian populace opens to the door to dictators and totalitarian governments), all we need to do is hire a few extra cops per town/city/county/schoold district...whatever.

geo-1957883

Hey Bev - Your from Obama's adopted hometown, maybe you can recite some of his gun legislation and how well it has worked in Chicago! Or is he a blowhard and Chicago has the most gun deaths in America? Which is it? Oh yeah, I almost forgot, which weekend did Chicago have over 50 shootings the President said nothing about?

When you talk about the straw men who buy gangs guns; I will.

Are you not aware the President spoke of Chicago during the vigil for the victims of the CT shooting? No President Obama doesn't have blood on hid hands. That evil psychopath Dick Chent and the smirking chip GW Bush do though.

"We can't tolerate this anymore, these tragedies must end" President Obama said.

On Friday, which Mr. Obama deemed the worst day of his time in office, the tearful president pointedly referenced daily gun violence in Chicago as well as the tragic shootings, saying it was time to "do something about it."

At the service Sunday night, Mr. Obama read each victim's name, his words punctuated frequently by audible sobs from the attendees in the auditorium.

Watch the president's remarks at the vigil

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftlT41LpIOY&feature=player_embedded

Our President issued the strongest call for change in gun policy of any political leader in a generation by saying the carnage must end.

Caesar Augustus-

Oscar why don't you and the rest of you gun nuts shove that gun up your a$$ and blow your brains

out.

HEY FISTY IS THIS ONE OF THE TIMES WHERE THE LIBERALS CROSS THE LINE???!!

On any given day you say 10 things more inappropriate than that. stfu please.

Bev - So your not going to recite his gun legislation? How about the 12 years and 6,000 gun murders in Chicago over his political career in Illinios. No blood on his hands. Really? To talk about in CT is just a little late don't you think? Political panderer yes. Do something meaningful about it no!

Rich-298746 you should be restricted from commenting. Suggesting that anyone commit suicide is just wrong. That is something only a bully would do. I invite you to come to my door and I will show you how much tolerance I have for bully's.

Show ANYWHERE that gun-control has worked?

Mexico is a great example of what we will see when you remove our ability to defend ourselves.

How would the libs like to see that type of MASS MURDER on a DAILY BASIS?

geo- your ignorance is showing - again. President Obama has NEVER BEEN in a local elected role here in Chicago. IF you knew anything, you would know that. Remember I said IF - clearly you don't!

Geo,

Those were dark skinned people shot over the course of an entire weekend. Beverly in Chicago, Fiesty, Pigotry and the rest of the gun hating hypocrites on this site only mourn WHITE SKINNED people shot all at once. This is their way of pushing the agenda to disarm the American people...and then take away their wealth by raising their taxes and calling it 'evening the playing field' when what they really mean is making us all servants to the government.

As a red skinned person, I say, don't let them do it brother. This new wave of Anti-freedom Americans are not to be trusted. For all you know the double tongued coyotes are paid to promote their lies on this board.

Caesar Augustus...

loves his line"against enemies foreign and domestic" - How did those guns work out for us @ Pearl Harbor and 9/11?

Our President issued the strongest call for change in gun policy of any political leader in a generation by saying the carnage must end.

What a valiant and noble leader LOL... I love it how you nutjob lefties have the audacity to call anyone on the right relgious whacko's. You FR lefties worship Obama as your living God.

On any given day you say 10 things more inappropriate than that. stfu please.

Hey Mike 416 (Degree Master) I dont ever call for the death of another human being. so quit whining

How did those guns work out for us @ Pearl Harbor and 9/11?

Lets see Pearl Harbor was a sneak attack (not an invasion) to make sure we couldnt enter WWII and 9-11 was a terrorist attack (again not an invasion). Perhaps you lack the comprehension when it is stated against enemies foreing and domestic. BTW at Pearl Harbor, we did fight back bozo

Caeser is advocating the violent overthrow of the duly elected American government....that's TREASON!

noneofthe..... we are talking about killing mass numbers of individuals at one time. We are already working on the problems in Chicago and the murder rate has dropped since the first of the year. Do we have more work to do - undoubtedly. But, see, we're actually doing something - unlike you bums who don't want to do ANYTHING to protect young children.

What a valiant and noble leader LOL

When one uses short-type phrases you can take what you will from it...

on this I read Love Our Leader

Why do I think the Obama haters are most of the gun nuts?? They need to self-secede....LOL

Obama is the only hope to take us into the civilized world and out of the chaos (just like with Health Care)

-----

BAN high-capacity magazines and assault weapons NOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

well bev what do you want to happen?you want all guns turned in?assault weapons ban?what do you consider to be an assault weapon?you can be assaulted with a baseball bat.bye bye MLB.strick gun laws work as we can see by chicago's,dc's,nyc,.so explain to me what you expect to happen?new law no more guns,hmmmthat'll work like laws stop people from stealing,murdering(like OJ),drugs,etc...

Are you not aware the President spoke of Chicago during the vigil for the victims of the CT shooting?

Of course he isn't aware. Being aware of anything the prez does would require removing ones head from Rush and Hannity's asses.

Last Tuesday, December 11, a mass shooting with an assault-style semi-automatic rifle
took place inside a shopping mall in my community and took two lives, and grievously
wounded a young girl.

Each of the following three days after that shooting, December 12, 13 and 14, the Gun Shops in my community reported all-time record gun sales; including the sale of many semi-automatic assault-style rifles similar to the weapon which was used in the the shopping mall shooting murders.

Four days after the shopping mall shooting, December 15 -- the day following the
horrific massacre inside an elementary school of 20, six and seven-year old children and
six teachers and administrators in Connecticut with another semi-automatic assault-style
rifle -- a large, well-attended Gun Show was held in the Exposition Center of my
community.

Thousands of guns changed hands from private sellers to private buyers at that Gun Show.
There were no background checks for the buyers of those thousands of weapons due to the
loophole in the Brady Bill, which Congress has thus far refused to close, or to even
debate.

The NRA and gun manufacturers have spent millions of dollars lobbying and giving
political campaign contributions to members of Congress to make certain that our elected
representatives in Congress do not act to close this loophole which allows the buyers of
40% of all gun sales in America to avoid a background check on their gun purchases, and
to continue to purchase semi-automatic assault-style weapons, high capacity ammunition
magazines and unlimited quantities of ammunition.

Think about that: 40% of all gun sales in America ... no background checks!

Am I alone here in seeing this state of affairs in America as completely absurd? Can anyone argue rationally and persuasively that our American society has not lost its collective mind
over the possession of guns?

Some footnotes for additional thought:

* Between the time you got out of bed this morning and the time you will get
out of bed tomorrow morning, 34 more people will die by guns in America; an average
daily toll which continues every day, 365 days a year, every year.

* According to the FBI Uniform Crime Report, 47,856 people were murdered in the U.S.
between 2006 and 2010 by firearms, year-by-year statistically average for gun murders,
...and more than twice as many people were killed by guns as were killed by all other means of murder combined.

* There are more than 129,817 federally licensed firearms dealers in the United States,
according to the latest Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

* There are approx. 36,569 Grocery Stores in the United States (source: Food Marketing
Institute, 2011) ..... Do we honestly need to have more than 3-12 times more firearms dealers in America than we have grocery stores?

* There are approx. 14,098 McDonald’s restaurants in the U.S. (Source: McDonald’s
Corporation Annual Report 2011) .... Do we honestly need to have more than 9 times more firearms dealers in America than we have McDonald's restaurants?

Does this actually make any sense to you? Ok, then make that rational and persuasive argument now that we have not lost our collective mind in America over the possession of guns.

n this I read Love Our Leader

you're right I can read anything into it like Left Of Looney. I bet you can relate eh? sure you can

BAN high-capacity magazines and assault weapons NOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

Roger that Fuhrer

First the crime driving this discussion was horrendous and resulted in children being murdered

If the murder of children is enough to disarm, then all countries should do away with their military,. This is because all countries, including us, have killed hundreds of thousands of children this last century alone in the name of war. Why dont we just outlaw war? Are you sure your politicians will protect you before you say yes research history, most recently Syria?

We don't disarm because we want to be able to fight evil when we encounter it, and as sick as it is, fewer children die if a good nation, or good person, is able to stop someone from harming them. Laws don't stop evil people or nations, armed force does. At the individual level the government didn't stop flight 93 from hitting its target the men on the plane did. Face it we are on our own but that is ok. It is reliance upon others that get most people killed. Remember when seconds matter help is minutes away.

Good people depend upon yourself and don't disarm. Those who want to disarm you want you to be as venerable as the children in that school. Laws prohibit guns at schools so those that follow the law did not have them. Problem is the murderer did not follow the law but in fact used it to find a safe place for him to mass murder. Lets fight these bastards and take them out at the first indication they plan to do harm to the people we love. We are free people because we are prepared to fight.

Ferrosynthesis-3490482

Caeser is advocating the violent overthrow of the duly elected American government....that's TREASON!

too much ferro between the ears i never advocated violent overthrow of anything. Perhaps you've had some violent overthrow intelligence. Yeah Id say so

Seeking Insanity - Our ridiculously ineffective President talks and sheds a tear after yet another massacre under his term, and you think he's making head way. Poor ignorant fool. Obama was elected locally to the Illinois senate. Where he could have been bold and crafted legislation to tamper the mass killings EVERY weekend in Chicago, his adopted hometown. Did he? NO. RTypo - Just a little after the fact, even a retard like you SHOULD understand. PS. I don't listen to any conservative radio or TV. haggisbingo - I personally hate guns. So go smoke some more dope and listen to your clueless Pres.

Ferro -

It's only 'treason' if it fails and the people are captured and tried. If it succeeds, it is called revolution...

Seeking Insanity and RTypo - " Are you not aware the President spoke of Chicago during the vigil for the victims of the Ct shootings" For the 2 dumbasses that wrote this, I simply have to say: What has he DONE! Saying Chicago means something, even though he has done nothing! 6,000 gun murders in Chicago and nothing to say untill a mass killing in CT. What a leader!

We already tried the 'assault weapon' and magazine size ban, that didn't stop gun violence at all.

What makes you think it will work if tried again? It's insanity.

We need to focus on where the root of the problem really is. It is not in objects that criminals use to commit crime, but the people who use them to do so.

I have yet to see an object commit a crime, ever. Have you?

Statistics will show that crime is committed 100% by people, not objects.

Are you not aware the President spoke of Chicago during the vigil for the victims of the CT shooting? No President Obama doesn't have blood on hid hands. That evil psychopath Dick Chent and the smirking chip GW Bush do though.

How stupid is that?

The left is full of idiot people like this. Cultists who consider Obama their Lord and Savior who think the rest of us should do the same.

Obama and company is using the blood of children to push their leftist totalitarian agenda. Facts do not matter to them. Taking away our rights is all they care about.

Hello folks, let's hope that we don't see an Executive Order bypassing the will of the people to deal with gun regulation. If Obama has the temerity to put forth an EO banning any kind of gun he is nothing more than a dictator. Let's see what he does!

I will NEVER support a repeal of the Second Amendment, but I do support common sense restrictions on the sale and ownership of military grade weapons that have firepower far beyond anything imagined by our Founding Fathers. I simply don't see the need for civilians to possess weapons capable of mowing down dozens of innocent people, particularly for "personal protection". A 30 round magazine is for a combat fire fight, not fending off an armed robber or home invader.

As far as the President, I will strongly oppose any measure to try and end our Second Amendment RIGHT to keep and bear arms but I will also deal with that when it actually happens, not just because political hacks say he MIGHT try to take the firearms of law-abiding Americans.

Caesar Augustus-

On any given day you say 10 things more inappropriate than that. stfu please.

Hey Mike 416 (Degree Master) I dont ever call for the death of another human being. so quit whining

You're right - your vitriol is worse.

And only the right considers an education as a detriment to society. You people are old product with you train of thought. You got whooped in November and you're still yelling from the highest mountain that you represent the majority. Clowns.