StrangeSox

Which is exactly why we can't have a sane discussion about guns in this country, because some people refuse to accept any change from the status quo at all unless its even less control.

The laws that exist are inadequate, though. Until he started shooting people, these guns were owned by a Law Abiding Citizen

You can't point to single-city jurisdictions as examples of the impossibility of gun control. It needs to be a national policy.

Yes, the answer is to restrict the availability and access to guns in general. edit: I bet a lot of us have seen those ridiculous "Israelis arm their teachers!" .gifs floating around on facebook. Fine, if the Israelis have such desirable gun policies (never mind that their reasons for arming their teachers are radically different than random spree shootings), let's follow them. Want a firearm? You need to explicitly justify your need for one, and you need a license. You need to re-apply for that license every three years. The government will document and track every licensed gun owner. You are allowed to possess a very limited quantity of ammunition. Every single gun must be registered, along with every transaction. Want to own a handgun? Better have been a captain or lieutenant colonel in the army. Rifles are largely illegal. And this is a highly militarized society that's constantly on a nation-wide defensive war footing.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012...un-control.html

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Dec 15, 2012 -> 02:38 PM) I thought everyone who carried was a gun-toting crazy man hell bent on recreating wild west shootouts at a moments notice? Nope, that's a silly strawman of what people who want to try to do something to stop these routine mass shootings actually say. Really? That's not what I got out of that story at all. Nor does it make any damn sense.

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Dec 15, 2012 -> 02:26 PM) Part of the confusion is the media's rush to report to satisfy the public's hunger for information. They just report whatever they hear as fast as they hear it. it was reported at one time he used a machine gun, 2 pistol, 2 pistols and a rifle, then the rifle was in the trunk. probably take weeks until we get the actual story, actual gun(s) used, amount of shots, etc. Then we can hear all the wonderful new laws everyone wants to pass that would have prevented this. we haven't had any new laws after the last several dozen gun-fueled massacres, though maybe the targeting of such young children will actually change that.

Wow, look at that, the gun made zero difference because the guy (thankfully) realized he could actually have made the situation worse by trying to play the hero in a shootout. Kinda like what happened when Gabby Giffords was shot in the the head.

QUOTE (Jake @ Dec 15, 2012 -> 01:00 PM) I do get irritated with people acting like a semi-automatic is the same thing as an automatic. They are very different. However, the semi-automatic is still very lethal in terms of how easy it is to fire a shot. In untrained hands its probably more lethal than a fully automatic anyway.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Dec 15, 2012 -> 08:19 AM) Many despicable things have been done in the name of god, including killing infants, toddlers, children. Huckabee is a moron to raise that issue, it had nothing to do with what happened.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 14, 2012 -> 04:50 PM) It's an elementary school surrounded by woods in something of a rural area, as much as there is in that part of the country. I doubt the doors were locked, and the probably was no security. There probably was a principal who had a view of the main entrance, but he could probably walk in at his leisure. I walked right into my wife.s school to drop something off before. There's no locked doors our security checkpoints.

Brian Fyscher and Mike Huckabee are blaming this tragedy on "taking God out of the classroom." f*** the both of them.

Right, and they have to have been registered prior to 84 or 86 (I forget which year), which severely limits their supply.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Dec 14, 2012 -> 12:57 PM) They have a much harder time in the future seasons with Astapor, Yunaki, Lys, Meereen etc. Also we havent seen Braavos yet to the depths that we will. Maybe we can just skip all the boring parts where it's Danny sitting around doing nothing for the most part in those cities

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Dec 14, 2012 -> 12:57 PM) They have a much harder time in the future seasons with Astapor, Yunaki, Lys, Meereen etc. Also we havent seen Braavos yet to the depths that we will. Maybe we can just skip all the boring parts where it's Danny sitting around doing nothing for the most part in those cities

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Dec 14, 2012 -> 03:56 PM) Yeah these posts are productive. The NRA and Wayne Lapierre should be mocked and derided. Not all gun owners or even regular NRA members.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Dec 14, 2012 -> 03:51 PM) I'm hoping that instead of only focusing on guns, we can put more focus on how we treat and handle the mentally ill. Any number of these mass shooters had previous diagnoses and/or medications and/or instutitionalizations for mental illnesses. There are solutions to be had in this area. You can add a requirement for mental health professionals to log diagnoses or medications in a database to be access when purchasing guns. You can start looking at over-crowded prisons and invest in taking some of those who are mentally ill out of them, and putting them in (secure) facilities where they can get real help. You can crack down on gun dealers in the US who sell without the proper checks. You can require the checks to include that database of mental issues. You can disallow all imports of guns to US, even to those who can otherwise legally own them. Lots of ways to go about this before you even talk about infringing on gun ownership rights for the majority of Americans. ^^a good post!

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Dec 14, 2012 -> 03:40 PM) Recently yes, but some years (2000-2002, 2004) had none, 2010 had one incident, etc. you do realize how terrible that is, right? "We have a few years every now and then with no mass-shootings!"

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Dec 14, 2012 -> 03:37 PM) Just as with drugs or cars or slaves or widgets, if you decrease the supply and increase the price, you are going to decrease the number of consumers who will demand the product. There is no perfect solution, but the simplest solution is simply making it harder to access handguns. Guns will be less frequent in gangs, and these shootings will be less frequent. They will still happen because of the sheer number of guns in the United States. this^^^

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Dec 14, 2012 -> 03:36 PM) And around and around we go. They'd find other means of killing themselves and/or would buy up illegal guns. Would the number shrink? Maybe. I still don't see how that'd stop a gunman killing 30 people though. But supply of said guns would be severely restricted. And this idea that a world where gangs didn't have guns would be just as violent is just plain dumb, sorry. You can't have drive-by knifings and innocent bystanders being knifed in their homes by stray knives.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Dec 14, 2012 -> 03:34 PM) But no one talks about banning alcohol. Because hey, guess what, alcohol serves other legitimate social purposes and, thanks to guns! we know that there will be an explosion of gun violence. Seriously, stop trying to equate guns and alcohol. They are not the same thing.

QUOTE (Wanne @ Dec 14, 2012 -> 03:34 PM) with no bans on alcohol. If they were serious there'd be those interlock devices on all cars... there have been a huge number of restrictions on drunk driving over the past several decades in response to the tragedies caused by drunk driving. the opposite is pretty much true with gun laws. we cannot have a sane conversation in this country about guns thanks to groups like the NRA.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Dec 14, 2012 -> 03:32 PM) Because they're generally one or maybe a handful of people involved, and it happens so frequently it's another blip on the news. A gunman killing 30 people happens every few years, and gets much more airtime. If you set the limit at 30 dead, sure, but if you just include all mass shootings it's every couple of months, on average. http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/12/1...ince-columbine/

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Dec 14, 2012 -> 03:30 PM) Gangs. Seriously, that's the answer. No other country has the number of gangs and gang members as the US. It's a small, incredibly violent, group of people in our society. I've looked before but couldn't find a study that looks at homicide rates in non-gang related shootings. I bet it's still higher than the rest of the world, but that number of gun related homicides shrinks to a much more comparable figure. If gangs have significantly less access to firearms...