How far will this go?

[carolina-rig-01]

Let me start off by saying that my hear is still broken over the senseless loss of lives at Newtown. I can't wrap my head around someone being so sick and demented that they could do something like this to innocent children. For the people who lost loved ones in any shooting in our history, this one probably doesn't seem any worse to them. But I think as a country this one really rattled our cage more than the rest because of both the number of victims as well as the age of the children. I will also say that although I am in no way, shape, or form an Obama fan, I was impressed with the speach he gave tonight in regards to the tragedy. He did a fine job of expressing our nations concern and heartache over what has happened. However he hinted at a subject that I think we all know is going to be brought up. I think for the most part, we are all in agreement that stricter gun laws are not the answer. But with the gun ban debate gaining steam, just how far do you think this will go? Do you look for AR's to be banned all together? Do you think that all semi-automatic firearms will become illegal? Or do you just expect the price of ammo to sky rocket to the point that having a gun is pointless? There is no doubt in my mind that changes are coming, and not in the direction I think is best but I just don't know how far this trail will skid off the tracks.

[nofearengineer]

The answer is more guns, and most people just don't get it.

If you want to be weak and unprepared, stop demanding to be safe. They simply don't go together. There is no police officer, government agency, or law that can keep you safer from an armed attacker than a trip to the firearm store and some good instruction in gun safety and shooting.

While I'm sure any of our last few presidents (not just Democrats) would have given approximately the same speech, none of them should have. This just fuels the desire for some future crazy to do the same thing. "Oooooooohhh, I'll be famous, the President will talk about me."

This speech was the kind of thing the general population demands now, in order to feel better about bad news. Exactly the same kind of useless nonsense like everyone "strongly condemning" terrorist attacks when they happen. Do we think the terrorists give two shlts about how bad we think they are?

I'm done ranting and raving now.

I'll just leave you with this. If they try to ban firearms and ammo, there will be more shootings...just not of school children.

[Jrob78]

I honestly don't think we are in for stronger gun control. I could be completely fooling myself but I don't think I am.

The reason I say this is the fact that gun laws are getting more relaxed, not more strict. More states have concealed carry laws on the books than ever before. More states have "Castle Doctrine" laws in effect than ever before. I've heard just as many people speak of how this could have been stopped had someone in that school been armed. The shooter didn't own those guns, I believe he took them from his mother after he killed her. Gun control wouldn't have prevented this, his mother probably would have passed the strictest of background checks.

The bottom line is, criminals will always break the law and guns are part of the fabric of this nation, for better or worse. You can't keep guns out of criminal's hands, it's 100% impossible in this country. The Brady Bill was allowed to expire after 10 yrs when it was proven to be ineffective. The only thing that criminals fear are guns in the hands of their targets.

Maybe I am being naive but I don't think this is going to hurt our gun rights, if anything, it should make them stronger.

[pro reel]

I think the Brady laws will be back. No more high capacity magazines. I expect the ban on new sales and imports of scary looking guns will be back. I don't call them assault weapons because thats not what they are, they are just a gun that looks scary to non gun people. I also expect amunition prices to skyrocket. Thats one of the things they have the power to do without a 2nd amendment fight. They just put exorbitant sin taxes on all ammo sales. I don't think they will or could at this time tackle all semi auto guns, even though they want to.
Joe, you are 100% correct that gun control would not have stopped this, at least not any existing or past laws. That hasn't stopped feinstien from saying she will introduce bills to ban new assault weapons and all mags that hold more than 10 bullets. They could go after some new laws on storage of weapons. They could say that if the kid didn't have access to his moms guns that this wouldn't have happened. They could pass a law that says if the gun is not with you that it has to be locked up or dropped off at a law enforcement holding area and then impose very strict punishments on anyone who had thier guns stolen because they didn't follow that law. If people knew that they would be charged as an accesory to murder if thier stolen weapons were used in a crime, then a lot of people would not take the chance and would get rid of thier guns, which is exactly what the criminals want to happen. By the way, everything I just mentioned has been discused or proposed by the anti gun crowd, so don't think it can't happen. It would still be legal to own and carry your gun, you just might not be able to afford to shoot it and you might be at a very high risk of going to jail if yoiu have it stolen from you due to it not being in a gun safe.

[Abbeysdad]

In the wake of hurricane Katrina, in violation of the oath they took to defend the constitution, the police went door to door and confiscated guns from law abiding citizens. Citizen's who later cowered in fear as armed looters roamed and ruled the streets with gunfire echoing every night, and law enforcement were absent or powerless to stop them!
Many people that lived through that who never owned guns before said they would never be without a gun in the future!

Gun control? These guns weren't his, they were his mothers. She was a 'Prepper' that feared the future and wanted to be ready. I guess her real fear should have been much closer to home.

I'm not a gun nut, but I take the 2nd amendment seriously and respect the rights we have that so many have fought and died for...and I don't think the rights of law abiding citizens should be trampled on because of a few lunatics.

The real answer may be better ways of dealing with mental illness? But then, by all accounts so far, this kid wasn't mental, but merely shy and socially awkward which would likely apply to a whole lot of teenage boys!
Until we better understand what makes these people killers, I don't know how we can hope to prevent similar events in the future...?

[lilmule]

Its any excuse for them to jump on the band wagon.
Tragic indeed,but how would stronger guns laws prevent someone like him doing same he got it illegally from someone else,didnt buy it himself as not able.
The gun is but a tool its use is user defined.
Timothy McVeigh actually killed more people,but fertilizer,box cargo vans,fuel are not harder to get at all.
Its all an excuse to disarm or attempt to those same guns taken during Katrina have failed to be returned to many.
Lastly whose fault was it,,guy was mental.
Are their things that can happen that would help yes.Tn has an officer at each school,adults just do not enter,get an apointment.
W.Va has lock down schools buzz in and out of classrooms or entering after school is in session.So why does an anti gun state permit outside adults on premises,no protection or buzz in out the common mfg or place of business does in ny or nj.
No joke get off interstate every place one attempts to ask questions at is a locked door,buzzed in,after asking what you want and bet they can see you as well on a screen.
Obviously cowering in a corner wont help,moving will.And no I dont advocate armed teachers weapons are prohibited on school grounds for a reason,but do think access and legal protection in the form of an armed police officer who also writes tickets is in order.
All exits unlock upon a fire alarm but one entrance for normal use and with a metal det gate just like at walmart although that one is for merchandise.

[flfireman]

So many ways to respond to this. I have a CWP, have had one for 17 years. I carry 90% of the time, minus the obvious areas that are prohibited. I have only had to pull out my handgun 1 time, no discharge. The threat was clear and the person realized they were no longer the aggressor, end of story. Heard later they nabbed the person trying to do the same thing to someone else. My firearm is used for protection of my family and myself. i do hunt etc, etc. My guns are locked in a safe when not on my person, I have small children and curious kids will be curious kids. I feel some rules need to be revamped on the purchase and sales of firearms. To me most gun shows are no better than finding Leroy or Joe on the corner and buying a piece from him. Look at the rules and look at ways to enforce these rules further. If you are caught illegally selling, lose your agent license, not 100% fix, but will slow down some of the questionable sales practices. If they begin to ban guns, they should ban cars, alcohol, knives, spoons, forks, etc, etc. All those items have been used to kill people also in some form or another.

[joedog]

Others have said it better than I can.


http://www.catb.org/esr/fortunes/rkba.html
Quotes on the Right to Bear Arms

Don't think of it as `gun control', think of it as `victim disarmament'. If we make enough laws, we can all be criminals.

The possession of arms by the people is the ultimate warrant that government governs only with the consent of the governed.
-- Jeff Snyder

As the Founding Fathers knew well, a government that does not trust its honest, law-abiding, taxpaying citizens with the means of self-defense is not itself worthy of trust. Laws disarming honest citizens proclaim that the government is the master, not the servant, of the people.

-- Jeff Snyder

Probably fewer than 2% of handguns and well under 1% of all guns will ever be involved in a violent crime. Thus, the problem of criminal gun violence is concentrated within a very small subset of gun owners, indicating that gun control aimed at the general population faces a serious needle-in-the-haystack problem.

-- Gary Kleck, "Point Blank: Handgun Violence In America"

When only cops have guns, it's called a "police state". -- Claire Wolfe, "101 Things To Do Until The Revolution"

Americans have the right and advantage of being armed - unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.

-- James Madison, The Federalist Papers

"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed."

-- Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers at 184-188

"Among the many misdeeds of British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest."

-- Mohandas Gandhi, An Autobiography, pg 446

The people of the various provinces are strictly forbidden to have in their possession any swords, short swords, bows, spears, firearms, or other types of arms. The possession of unnecessary implements makes difficult the collection of taxes and dues and tends to foment uprisings.

-- Toyotomi Hideyoshi, dictator of Japan, August 1588

"One of the ordinary modes, by which tyrants accomplish their purposes without resistance, is, by disarming the people, and making it an offense to keep arms."

-- Constitutional scholar and Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story, 1840

"The bearing of arms is the essential medium through which the individual asserts both his social power and his participation in politics as a responsible moral being..."

-- J.G.A. Pocock, describing the beliefs of the founders of the U.S.

Men trained in arms from their infancy, and animated by the love of liberty, will afford neither a cheap or easy conquest.

-- From the Declaration of the Continental Congress, July 1775.

"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.

"Taking my gun away because I might shoot someone is like cutting my tongue out because I might yell `Fire!' in a crowded theater."

-- Peter Venetoklis

...Virtually never are murderers the ordinary, law-abiding people against whom gun bans are aimed. Almost without exception, murderers are extreme aberrants with lifelong histories of crime, substance abuse, psychopathology, mental retardation and/or irrational violence against those around them, as well as other hazardous behavior, e.g., automobile and gun accidents."

-- Don B. Kates, writing on statistical patterns in gun crime

The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them."

-- Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story of the John Marshall Court

Militias, when properly formed, are in fact the people themselves and include all men capable of bearing arms. [...] To preserve liberty it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them.

-- Senator Richard Henry Lee, 1788, on "militia" in the 2nd Amendment

"...quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est." [...a sword never kills anybody; it's a tool in the killer's hand.]

-- (Lucius Annaeus) Seneca "the Younger" (ca. 4 BC-65 AD),

False is the idea of utility that sacrifices a thousand real advantages for one imaginary or trifling inconvenience; that would take fire from men because it burns, and water because one may drown in it; that has no remedy for evils except destruction. The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes.
-- Cesare Beccaria, as quoted by Thomas Jefferson's Commonplace book

No kingdom can be secured otherwise than by arming the people. The possession of arms is the distinction between a freeman and a slave.

-- "Political Disquisitions", a British republican tract of 1774-1775

Are we at last brought to such a humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our own defence? Where is the difference between having our arms in our own possession and under our own direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defence be the *real* object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?

-- Patrick Henry, speech of June 9 1788

"To disarm the people... was the best and most effectual way to enslave them."

-- George Mason, speech of June 14, 1788

"The great object is, that every man be armed. [...] Every one who is able may have a gun."

-- Patrick Henry, speech of June 14 1788

Such are a well regulated militia, composed of the freeholders, citizen and husbandman, who take up arms to preserve their property, as individuals, and their rights as freemen.

-- "M.T. Cicero", in a newspaper letter of 1788 touching the "militia" referred to in the Second Amendment to the Constitution.

That the said Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United states who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms...

-- Samuel Adams, in "Phila. Independent Gazetteer", August 20, 1789

The danger (where there is any) from armed citizens, is only to the *government*, not to *society*; and as long as they have nothing to revenge in the government (which they cannot have while it is in their own hands) there are many advantages in their being accustomed to the use of arms, and no possible disadvantage.

-- Joel Barlow, "Advice to the Privileged Orders", 1792-93

[The disarming of citizens] has a double effect, it palsies the hand and brutalizes the mind: a habitual disuse of physical forces totally destroys the moral [force]; and men lose at once the power of protecting themselves, and of discerning the cause of their oppression.

-- Joel Barlow, "Advice to the Privileged Orders", 1792-93

Every Communist must grasp the truth, 'Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.'

-- Mao Tse-tung, 1938, inadvertently endorsing the Second Amendment.

In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a 'shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length' at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument. [...] The Militia comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense.

-- Majority Supreme Court opinion in "U.S. vs. Miller" (1939)

An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life.

-- Robert A. Heinlein, "Beyond This Horizon", 1942

The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to permit the conquered Eastern peoples to have arms. History teaches that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by doing so.

-- Adolph Hitler, April 11 1942.

The right to buy weapons is the right to be free.

-- A.E. Van Vogt, "The Weapon Shops Of Isher", ASF December 1942

Rifles, muskets, long-bows and hand-grenades are inherently democratic weapons. A complex weapon makes the strong stronger, while a simple weapon -- so long as there is no answer to it -- gives claws to the weak.

-- George Orwell, "You and the Atom Bomb", 1945

Certainly one of the chief guarantees of freedom under any government, no matter how popular and respected, is the right of the citizens to keep and bear arms. [...] the right of the citizens to bear arms is just one guarantee against arbitrary government and one more safeguard against a tyranny which now appears remote in America, but which historically has proved to be always possible.

-- Hubert H. Humphrey, 1960

No matter how one approaches the figures, one is forced to the rather startling conclusion that the use of firearms in crime was very much less when there were no controls of any sort and when anyone, convicted criminal or lunatic, could buy any type of firearm without restriction. Half a century of strict controls on pistols has ended, perversely, with a far greater use of this weapon in crime than ever before.

-- Colin Greenwood, in the study "Firearms Control", 1972

Let us hope our weapons are never needed --but do not forget what the common people knew when they demanded the Bill of Rights: An armed citizenry is the first defense, the best defense, and the final defense against tyranny. If guns are outlawed, only the government will have guns. Only the police, the secret police, the military, the hired servants of our rulers. Only the government -- and a few outlaws. I intend to be among the outlaws.

-- Edward Abbey, "Abbey's Road", 1979

If I were to select a jack-booted group of fascists who are perhaps as large a danger to American society as I could pick today, I would pick BATF [the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms].

-- U.S. Representative John Dingell, 1980

.. a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any particular individual citizen...

-- Warren v. District of Columbia, 444 A.2d 1 (D.C. App.181)

The conclusion is thus inescapable that the history, concept, and wording of the second amendment to the Constitution of the United States, as well as its interpretation by every major commentator and court in the first half-century after its ratification, indicates that what is protected is an individual right of a private citizen to own and carry firearms in a peaceful manner.

-- Report of the Subcommittee On The Constitution of the Committee On The Judiciary, United States Senate, 97th Congress, second session (February, 1982), SuDoc# Y4.J 89/2: Ar 5/5

In recent years it has been suggested that the Second Amendment protects the "collective" right of states to maintain militias, while it does not protect the right of "the people" to keep and bear arms. If anyone entertained this notion in the period during which the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were debated and ratified, it remains one of the most closely guarded secrets of the eighteenth century, for no known writing surviving from the period between 1787 and 1791 states such a thesis.

-- Stephen P. Halbrook, "That Every Man Be Armed", 1984

To make inexpensive guns impossible to get is to say that you're putting a money test on getting a gun. It's racism in its worst form.

-- Roy Innis, president of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), 1988

I don't like the idea that the police department seems bent on keeping a pool of unarmed victims available for the predations of the criminal class.

-- David Mohler, 1989, on being denied a carry permit in NYC

Americans have the will to resist because you have weapons. If you don't have a gun, freedom of speech has no power.

-- Yoshimi Ishikawa, Japanese author, in the LA Times 15 Oct 1992

"]***You know why there's a Second Amendment? In case the government fails to follow the first one.***
[/COLOR]-- Rush Limbaugh, in a moment of unaccustomed profundity 17 Aug 1993

The whole of the Bill [of Rights] is a declaration of the right of the people at large or considered as individuals... It establishes some rights of the individual as unalienable and which consequently, no majority has a right to deprive them of.

-- Albert Gallatin, Oct 7 1789

The world is filled with violence. Because criminals carry guns, we decent law-abiding citizens should also have guns. Otherwise they will win and the decent people will lose.

-- James Earl Jones

Whether the authorities be invaders or merely local tyrants, the effect of such [gun control] laws is to place the individual at the mercy of the state, unable to resist.

-- Robert Anson Heinlein, 1949

Strict gun laws are about as effective as strict drug laws...It pains me to say this, but the NRA seems to be right: The cities and states that have the toughest gun laws have the most murder and mayhem.

-- Mike Royko, Chicago Tribune

According to the National Crime Survey administered by the Bureau of the Census and the National Institute of Justice, it was found that only 12 percent of those who use a gun to resist assault are injured, as are 17 percent of those who use a gun to resist robbery. These percentages are 27 and 25 percent, respectively, if they passively comply with the felon's demands. Three times as many were injured if they used other means of resistance.

-- G. Kleck, "Policy Lessons from Recent Gun Control Research," Law and Contemporary Problems 49, no. 1. (Winter 1986.): 35-62.

If gun laws in fact worked, the sponsors of this type of legislation should have no difficulty drawing upon long lists of examples of criminal acts reduced by such legislation. That they cannot do so after a century and a half of trying -- that they must sweep under the rug the southern attempts at gun control in the 1870-1910 period, the northeastern attempts in the 1920-1939 period, the attempts at both Federal and State levels in 1965-1976 -- establishes the repeated, complete and inevitable failure of gun laws to control serious crime.

-- Senator Orrin Hatch, in a 1982 Senate Report

Where rights secured by the Constitution are involved, there can be no rule making or legislation which would abrogate them.

-- Miranda vs. Arizona, 384 US 436 p. 491

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 people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops.

-- Noah Webster

[President Clinton] boasts about 186,000 people denied firearms under the Brady Law rules. The Brady Law has been in force for three years. In that time, they have prosecuted seven people and put three of them in prison. You know, the President has entertained more felons than that at fundraising coffees in the White House, for Pete's sake."

-- Charlton Heston, FOX News Sunday, 18 May 1997

(Those) who are trying to read the Second Amendment out of the Constitution by claiming it's not an individual right (are) courting disaster by encouraging others to use the same means to eliminate portions of the Constitution they don't like.

-- Alan Dershowitz, Harvard Law School

The right of self-defense is the first law of nature: in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible. Wherever standing armies are kept up, and when the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any color or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction."

-- Henry St. George Tucker (in Blackstone's Commentaries)

"Both oligarch and tyrant mistrust the people, and therefore deprive them of arms."

--Aristotle

The biggest hypocrites on gun control are those who live in upscale developments with armed security guards -- and who want to keep other people from having guns to defend themselves. But what about lower-income people living in high-crime, inner city neighborhoods? Should such people be kept unarmed and helpless, so that limousine liberals can 'make a statement' by adding to the thousands of gun laws already on the books?"

--Thomas Sowell

"Boys who own legal firearms have much lower rates of delinquency and drug use and are even slightly less delinquent than nonowners of guns."

-- U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, NCJ-143454, "Urban Delinquency and Substance Abuse," August 1995.

Gun Control: The theory that a woman found dead in an alley, raped and strangled with her panty hose, is somehow morally superior to a woman explaining to police how her attacker got that fatal bullet wound.

-- L. Neil Smith

A man with a gun is a citizen. A man without a gun is a subject.

"Gun control" is a job-safety program for criminals.

During waves of terror attacks, Israel's national police chief will call on all concealed-handgun permit holders to make sure they carry firearms at all times, and Israelis have many examples where concealed permit holders have saved lives.

-- John R. Lott

"Historical examination of the right to bear arms, from English antecedents to the drafting of the Second Amendment, bears proof that the right to bear arms has consistently been, and should still be, construed as an individual right."

-- U.S. District Judge Sam Cummings, in re U.S. vs Emerson (1999).

[Dogmatic]

Just ridiculous. It so sad that this is the response to 20 First Graders being murdered by a man carrying an assault weapon(not a sporting rifle).

[kennethdaysale]

Originally Posted by Dogmatic

Just ridiculous. It so sad that this is the response to 20 First Graders being murdered by a man carrying an assault weapon(not a sporting rifle).

Oh my goodness Franklin. Short naps are the best aren't they? The posts you're reading above are about potential Gun Control legislation. You must have missed the genuine offering up of prayers and condolences the members here offered up elsewhere. Did you not read any of Joedogs post above you? Does any of that make any sense to you at all? What is your proposed solution to this kind of thing? What laws would you be in favor of regarding your right to keep and bear arms?

[kennethdaysale]

Here's the Headline I'd rather have seen:
Well armed man intent on killing as many small school children as possible shot and killed by teacher as soon he shoulders his weapon . The End

[WTL]

Sometimes problems defy an easy solution. Ban the guns and crime in general will go up. Give teachers guns and it will be great -- until a teacher snaps. There is a problem with letting singular tragic events dictate policy.

[nofearengineer]

As I now have my yearly bonus check in my sweaty hands, I am officially shopping for an AR.

[pro reel]

None of the laws they wan't to introduce would have stopped this person from doing what he did. I think that for the most part, the anti gun crowd just wants to use this tradgedy as a reason to further thier agenda. It makes no sense at all to ban high capacity mags. It takes only a few seconds to change an empty mag. If he only had 10 round mags, he would have just needed to have a few extras loaded up. It also doesn't matter what the gun looks like. Military style guns are just a look. Some people like the look and to others they are scary. The people that call them assault weapons are just trying to make them sound evil. My 22 cal. rifle thats used for hunting rabbits and target plinking can look like a normal hunting rifle or you can buy all sorts of optional accesories to make it look any way you like. At close range, it wouldn't matter if he used a high caliber rifle or a simple 22 caliber plinking rifle.
Now, I don't know why his mother had guns that he could get to. If someone living in your house is mentaly unstable, then you should be sure that they don't have access to weapons of any sort. That may even mean you need to lock up the kitchen knives. What we need is better education and better resources for families dealing with someone who has mental health problems. We also need to have security at schools. Maybe arming every teacher isn't a good idea, some of them are not to be trusted either. We should have some well trained and armed people at schools though.

[WTL]

Originally Posted by pro reel

None of the laws they wan't to introduce would have stopped this person from doing what he did. I think that for the most part, the anti gun crowd just wants to use this tradgedy as a reason to further thier agenda. It makes no sense at all to ban high capacity mags. It takes only a few seconds to change an empty mag. If he only had 10 round mags, he would have just needed to have a few extras loaded up. It also doesn't matter what the gun looks like. Military style guns are just a look. Some people like the look and to others they are scary. The people that call them assault weapons are just trying to make them sound evil. My 22 cal. rifle thats used for hunting rabbits and target plinking can look like a normal hunting rifle or you can buy all sorts of optional accesories to make it look any way you like. At close range, it wouldn't matter if he used a high caliber rifle or a simple 22 caliber plinking rifle.
Now, I don't know why his mother had guns that he could get to. If someone living in your house is mentaly unstable, then you should be sure that they don't have access to weapons of any sort. That may even mean you need to lock up the kitchen knives. What we need is better education and better resources for families dealing with someone who has mental health problems. We also need to have security at schools. Maybe arming every teacher isn't a good idea, some of them are not to be trusted either. We should have some well trained and armed people at schools though.

I agree with everything you said.

[bassboogieman]

I'm sure Dog would have felt MUCH BETTER if the demented young man would have just slit the throats of the children rather than shoot them, or maybe bashed in thier heads with a bat or tire iron. Surely the backlash would not have been as bad - no one is promoting bat control or tire iron control. No, I know he would not - but that is the logic of the liberal thinkers. Remove the instrument of crime and criminals can't be criminals? Who really beilives that crap?

The result would have been the same (although possibly more horrific) - a child cannot defend himself from a grown man with a knife, other weapon and probably bare hands. Maybe an adult male teacher may have slowed him down, but the female teachers and administrators that were also murdered would have fared about as well as a child. It is not the gun that killed those helpless victims, it was the human wielding the weapon and regardless of the weapon of choice, the result would have been just as tragic.

Bottom line GUN CONTROL would not have kept this young man from doing what he did. GUN CONTROL MAY have prevented him from buying a weapon. IT WAS NOT HIS WEAPON that was used in the commision of this crime. He, in effect, stole the weapons from his mother - who purchased the weapons leagally. He could have, as well, stolen a knife or two from the kitchen drawer. If someone bent on obtaining a weapon wants one badly enough, he will obtain one - regardless of any laws aimed at control or limitations. The only individuals affected by control, limitations, or LAWS are those that abide by them, those that do not regard the laws, etc. are the issue. It's the criminal (outlaw) that is the problem - not any inanimate object they choose to use in the pursuit of thier criminal goals.

With gun ownership, also comes responsibility. The mother, obviously, failed in her responsibily of her own version of "GUN CONTROL" by leaving them accessible when not under her immediate control. She paid the ultimate price for her error - remember she was the first victim. She knew her son had issues, was a gun owner and did not keep them secure. That is tragic too, but had her son not had access to her weapons - would he have found another source or used another type? No one knows for sure - except Bob Costas. He knows how everyone else thinks and would act - just ask him.

[nofearengineer]

Francis loves gun control because he lives in a nice safe suburb where 94 percent of the population look like him. He thinks if he doesn't feel threatened, why should you?

[lilmule]

Hmmm the right to bear arms,also included the right to free speech,while I dont agree with it will use my right to bear arms to insure he can say it;

[keithdog]

I was just listening to the radio today and they were talking about this subject and pointed out that a very similar attack just occured last week in China. A guy who was convinced the end of the world was near killed his neighbor lady with a knife, and went to the elementary school and stabbed over 20 young children. How many died I don't know. If your demented, you'll find a way. I can deal with banning high capacity clips, but thats about it. You don't need a 30 round clip to hunt with. But an AR15 semi auto works just the same as any other semi auto hunting rifle.
What I think your going to see is a greater amount of attention to getting care for those who have mental illnesses. Not so much gun control. Thats the biggest issue in this arena. The stigma against mental illness sickens me, and is a very hard issue for society to deal with. You can have any sort of physical illness and everyone accepts it and is glad to see you get the needed care. However, if one is bipoler or has any other mental illness that makes life in public difficult at best, people say, get your act together! Tighten your boot straps and get moving. The fact is, people with these problems simply cant "get it together" without help. And ignoring this is inviting tragedy. As a society, we can no longer keep looking the other way and wanting those with mental illness to just go away. They are here, and if they don't get the help they need, the drugs that can control their issues, then tragedies such as what happened in Conn. will continue.

[Tavery5]

It would be interesting to know where the parents of the children involved in this tragedy stand on gun control. I wonder if this event changed or strengthened their stance.

I am a gun advocate, I own several guns and would hate to loose the right to own or shoot any of them. But I truly believe that something has to change, the price of our 2nd amendment rights cannot be the lives of innocent children and adults. I hope that instead of the typical knee jerk reaction that we usually see following this type of event, that there will be serious, constructive discussion on what can be done to help prevent this type of thing or worse from happening again.
While I hope this, I am realistic also, I have serious doubt of it being reality, to many politics and hardcores on both sides of the subject to have any real discourse.

Take a look at this thread and you can already see the lines being drawn and people digging in, no chance of meaningful discussion.

[Jrob78]

It also makes me wonder how this would be playing out now if he'd gone in there with a pump shotgun and a couple of revolvers instead of semi automatic weapons. The "evil" looking AR-15 scares the crap out of non gun people.

I understand why people jump to blame guns when something like this happens. There is so much emotion involved and frankly, gun control is about the only action that can be taken quickly, it's the easy way out. It's also the very least effective. To me, tightening gun control to stop crime is like banning radial tires to stop drunk driving, it just doesn't make any sense at all.

[TN_Bassin]

@Dog... Is it your goal in life to try to stir up a hornet's nest every time you post on here... seriously, get a life.

As for semi-auto guns... you can stuff a hunting rifle in a corvette body all you want but it's still a hunting rifle.

[bassboogieman]

Banning guns works? Guns are banned on airplanes (unless you are a Federal agent, marshall or other law enforcement officer and get permission). Everyone on board, including airline personnel are/were banned from carrying firearms. That works - unless you're a hijacker. I wonder how many people aboard the FOUR airplanes hijacked on Sept. 11, 2001 would have liked to have had a gun on their person. How many of the crew? If the cockpit crew would have had been permitted weapons in the cabin - how many lives may have been saved? Would the Twin Towers still stand? Terrorists target planes because they KNOW the people aboard are unarmed and can offer little resistance. EASY VICTIMS. Take that principle and expand it to everything nationwide and we become sheep available for the picking as the wolves choose.

I hope never to be in a situation where some maniac looses it and decides it's the day to make the news. But if I am - I HOPE I'M NOT THE ONLY ONE CARRING A GUN. I may not win a gunfight, but I won't be a helpless victime cowering in a corner waiting to be shot. Every human being is ENTITLED to defend thenselves in the face of an aggressor, and when the aggressor displays hostile intent putting one in fear of thier life - deadly force used in self defense is legally (and by any other qualifiction) justifed and proper. If you don't believe that - I respect your opinion. I only ask the same in return. I won't ever vote to force someone to carry a gun and I hope no one votes to take mine away.

Gun ownership is a right guaranteed under our Constitiution, but exercising that right is a matter of personal choice.

[carolina-rig-01]

Originally Posted by Dogmatic

Just ridiculous. It so sad that this is the response to 20 First Graders being murdered by a man carrying an assault weapon(not a sporting rifle).

I am pretty sure that I said this in the thread that was dedicated to the shooting, but since I'm not too proud to say it again and you obviously must have overlooked the other thread I will repeat it.

There hasn't been a shooting of this nature that hasn't broke my heart as an American. I mean seeing where our country is headed is emberassing and it's tough to watch. But this shooting at Newtown broke my heart as a father, and that is much tougher to deal with. I have a son that isn't much younger than the children killed in this shooting and that really makes this one tough to swallow. When I got home from work Friday night I turned on the coverage of the shooting and sat in my chair with my son in my lap and I cried for hours. I kept telling my wife that those kids weren't much older than Lake and it breaks my heart to think of somone doing something like that, especially to children.

However since there was already a thread that was about the shooting I thought it would be ok to start this thread about a seperate issue stemming from the shooting. It looks to me like everyone else on the sight was ok with the thread except for you, which is pretty much par for the course with you.

I almost bought an AR a few months back. Britney told me to go ahead and I almost bought one but the problem I had was figuring out exactly what I wanted in one. I have very little experience with them and wanted to make sure I got what I wanted. I held off and now that Christmas is here I really don't have the money to throw on one but wish more than ever that I bought one a few months back. I won't sit here and claim that I need an AR. But I will sit here and tell you that it's my right to own one if I want and the fact that the government is making such a hard push to ban them makes them more valueable to me. I have heard several rumors about what they are going to ban and honestly nothing would surprise me. I look for them to make a strong effort to ban all semi-automatic weapons and most likely settle on banning high capacity magazines. What really makes me mad is it's almost always people who don't understand guns at all that are making this arguement about banning guns. When these people hear the term semi-automatic they all instantly picture an AR-15 or AK47. Most of them don't realize that also covers a lot of shotguns, handguns, small rifles, and even some high powered rifles. Here in Missouri a hunting shotgun has to have a plug in it allowing it to hold a maximum of 3 shells. However these people are so uneducated on the subject that they would ban a shotgun that holds 3 shells but not ban a deer rifle that will hold 5, or a .22 that will hold 15-20 rounds. They just think that taking semi-automatic guns away will eleminate AR type guns and their ignorance doesn't let them understand that there are a lot of other guns that would be banned under that way of thinking. Hell I guess I could go get a Barrett .50 cal that's a bolt action and I could shoot a target at over a mile away with practice, but that's fine as long as I don't own a semi-automatic 12GA shotgun for dove hunting. These people need to do some research and learn a little bit before they start jumping on the "guns are bad bandwagon".

[Jrob78]

There are some people who get it.

http://www.myfoxdfw.com/story/203959...concealed-guns