caulfield12

But, typically, Northern Europe is always rated as one of the best or happiest places to live...Denmark, Norway, Finland and Sweden always come up on those "best" lists, despite the bitter cold. With the high suicide rate in Asian countries, it's not related as much to the guns (or lack thereof) as cultural factors. There are lots of only children in Japan/Korea/China/Singapore, so there's an inordinate amount of pressure and stress on them to succeed when they are teenagers and 20-somethings. All kids do here their senior year in China is study, study, study for their Gao Kao exams. Their whole life, for most Chinese students, is based on the results of this one exam. Because of the amount of pressure and stress, the fact that parents don't often have very open lines of communication with their children because they're far too busy providing them everything materially but their TIME and ATTENTION, the lack of any type of mental health infrastructure (for example, if you're a Thai teen, if you seek a counselor for depression/suicidal thoughts, it stays on your permanent record when you apply for jobs and makes you virtually unemployable), the stigma about mental problems in general....kids between 12-28 often just lose it. More often than not, it is females (who don't feel as loved as boys in China, although this is changing slowly)...and it's very very difficult for young people in Asia to talk about their private problems to even their peers, because they want to project an aura of success and contentment. They keep everything bottled up inside. I even read something where about 88% of high school and university girls don't even tell their best friend/s they've had sex for the first time for fear of being judged or gossiped about. When you live in a culture where so many things are officially repressed, it's bound to come out somehow, often with negative repercussions. Along with that, you have a low official divorce rate (there are a lot of sociological/cultural reasons I won't go into), but tons of unhappy marriages (and examples for children) where the men are having affairs but the family officially stays together for the sake of the grandparents and children. You can't just look at isolated countries with or without guns and then make comparisons without taking 100 other factors into consideration, just like the idea that violent video games and movies is the main predictor for gun violence is ridiculous and an easy excuse not to have a real discussion.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Dec 19, 2012 -> 01:21 PM) I'm razzing you. However, the fine people of Tennessee feel that teachers would be perfectly capable of using guns in their classroom. So I can razz back, lol. Why shouldn't they be using Davey Crockett styled weapons (the most important person in Tennessee state history, or Andrew Jackson) instead of more modern handguns or semi-automatics? Wouldn't that be what a strict constructionist to the Constitution would prefer, muskets and breech loaders?

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Dec 19, 2012 -> 01:18 PM) More fear mongering. Okay, please give me some specific examples where schoolteachers have successfully shot and killed intruders in their homes with handguns (am not talking semi-automatic rifles here) without harming anyone else in the process...? So when the next school/public building shooting takes place due to copycat syndrome, then this whole fear-mongering label will be thrown out again, right? And yet how would you feel if it was your own son or daughter on that list of victims? Would you feel the "interpreted" right of the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution was more important? Then why didn't the killer use a musket from the Revolutionary War or War of 1812? If guns (and the country/world/globalization, etc.) can change, so can the US Constitution.

QUOTE (DukeNukeEm @ Dec 19, 2012 -> 01:11 PM) Fantasy? I would've gotten the f*** out of there even if I was carrying. My chances would still be better running than getting a firefight. But if there was nowhere to run, yea I'd rather have a gun in that situation and so would you. Or the example recently in the Empire State Building where police officers hit 9 civilians (not directly involved) in a shoot-out due to ricochets. http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/08/24...ice-rounds?lite So the police, trained to kill someone in that situation in their everyday duty, had 9 out of 14 shots hit non-combatants. And yet somehow teachers are going to do better? C'mon, I've been a teacher for over a decade and that's just impossible to believe. Teacher, school administrator, counselor, whatever.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Dec 19, 2012 -> 12:31 PM) Why does the cartel buy guns from the Sons of Anarchy if they're so easily produced in Mexico!? Come on, think! It's Galen and the Irish, SOA Belfast Chapter. LOL. Don't think I can wait another half year or so for the next episode. Damn you, Clay and Jax.

For those bringing up the fact that Australia or England is not comparable to America because they are more "isolated," I give you another example, Israel. They are surrounded by historical enemies and at permanent war with terrorism, even moreso than the US. One of the unique provisions there is a lifetime limit of 50 bullets (edit, 50 rounds per year), from what I understand. http://www.jta.org/news/article/2012/07/24...n-violence-down In Israel, assault rifles are banned except for special circumstances, such as communal self-defense in areas deemed to be a security risk. And while political violence in Israel is all too common and gun violence is a growing problem, random shootings of strangers – like the Aurora massacre -- are virtually unheard-of here. Unlike in the United States, where the right to bear arms is guaranteed in the Constitution’s Second Amendment, Israel’s department of public security considers gun ownership a privilege, not a right. Gun owners in Israel are limited to owning one pistol, and must undergo extensive mental and physical tests (such as target or sharpshooting) before they can receive a weapon, and gun owners are limited to 50 rounds of ammunition per year. Not all Israelis, however, may own guns. In order to own a pistol, an Israeli must for two years have been either a captain in the army or a former lieutenant colonel. Israelis with an equivalent rank in other security organizations may also own a pistol. In addition, residents of West Bank settlements, and those who work there, may own pistols for self-defense. Other groups of Israelis, such as professional hunters and sharpshooters, or people transporting dangerous goods, may also own firearms. And Israelis may keep unloaded guns they inherited or received as a gift. Lior Nedivi, a former police officer, said that despite Israel’s militarized society, neither soldiers nor veterans engage in extensive gun violence because 18-year-olds are tested for mental and physical fitness before being drafted. In 2008, 143 people in Israel died from firearms, according to the website gunpolicy.org. “They don’t recruit everyone,” said Nedivi, who runs a company called Advanced Forensic Science Services. “If you are a person with a record of violence, you will be discharged.” Nedivi favors allowing private gun ownership with tight regulations, noting that armed civilians have used their guns to stop terrorists during attacks. He said that gun massacres don’t occur in Israel because gun owners here undergo more comprehensive psychological screenings than do U.S. gun owners. “It’s not guns that kill, it’s people that kill,” Nedivi said. “If this person in Colorado will be screened now, they will say he has mental problems. In Israel, most people like this don’t get a chance to get a gun.” Gun violence does still occur in Israel, though gun control is not a sensitive political issue. “We think the society is over-armed,” said Smadar Ben-Natan, a lawyer who co-heads Gun-Free Kitchen Tables, an Israeli coalition to end domestic gun violence. “There are too many weapons going around. There is no justification that these weapons go home and are present in civilian surroundings.” Rather than lobbying for new laws, Gun-Free Kitchen Tables is pushing for the enforcement of current regulations, which require security guards to leave their weapons in their workplace. Ben-Natan said private security companies often do not abide by the law. “The private police companies offer an illusion of security,” Ben-Natan said. “They’re not accountable in terms of the public interest. They don’t bear the cost of the precautions that need to be in place. The people that pay this price are the women and family members who get shot.” For soldiers who take their weapons home on weekends and off-nights, the rule is they must be on their person at all times or under double-locks if left at home.

http://rt.com/usa/news/gun-control-manchin-assault-234/ Senator Manchin (WV), lifelong NRA member, says it's time to reopen gun control debate/discussion. Never mind. I just realized all these topics are probably in the other thread, although I haven't taken the time to read any of it. Please delete.

QUOTE (bmags @ Dec 17, 2012 -> 04:42 PM) Because that's what the people of the family need, to see more violence. Share on facebookShare on redditShare on diggShare on twitterShare on farkShare on stumbleupon120 Topics: chris wallace ♦ fox news ♦ louie gohmert Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) on Sunday insisted that a tragic massacre at Sandy Forks Elementary School in Connecticut could have been prevented if Principal Dawn Hochsprung had been armed with an M4 carbine, an assault rifle designed by the U.S. military for urban warfare. During an interview on Sunday, Fox News host Chris Wallace asked Gohmert if he still believed that the country would be safer if more people were armed as he had said after a mass shooting at a theater in Aurora, Colorado earlier this year. “Every mass killing of more than three people in recent history has been in a place where guns were prohibited — except for one,” the Texas Republican explained. “They choose this place, they know no one will be armed.” Gohmert became emotional as he continued: “You know, having been and judge and having reviewed photographs of these horrific scenes and knowing that children have these defensive wounds — gunshots through their arms and hands as they try to protect themselves — and hearing the heroic stories the principal, lunging trying to protect — Chris, I wish to God she had had an M4 in her office locked up. So, when she heard gunfire she pulls it out and she didn’t have to lunge heroically with nothing in her hands, but she takes him out, takes his head off before he can kill those precious kids.” Wallace noted that when the Second Amendment was written, weapons like the AR-15 Adam Lanza used to kill 20 children last week — which can shoot up to five rounds in a second — did not exist. “These were created for law enforcement, these were created for the military,” Wallace observed. “Why does the average person — I can understand a hunting rifle, I can understand and handgun — why do they need these weapons of mass destruction?” “Well, for the reason George Washington said: a free people should be an armed people,” Gohmert replied. “It insures against the tyranny of the government if they know that the biggest army is the American people then you don’t have the tyranny that came from King George.” “Once you start drawing the line, when do you stop?” he wondered. “You use your head and you look at the facts.” Watch this video from Fox News’ Fox News Sunday, broadcast Dec. 16, 2012. Raw Story (http://s.tt/1x5fc)

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 17, 2012 -> 10:10 AM) I don't want to live in a society where people are denied the rights to stupid speech. I want to live in a society where those type of people are given their rights to speech...and everyone else is repelled by it if they're dumb enough to use it. I want to live in a society where people are raised better than that. Where people are better people than the WBC. I think it's easier to say that if you've never been the victim. Granted, a good percentage of white people nowadays feel they are the victims of reverse racism or discrimination, lol. What I can't imagine is leaving a church on the way to a cemetery and hearing that God in punishing my son/daughter...with the atmosphere being as charged as it is, I just can't imagine them having the courage to actually show up in that CT community all the way from Topeka. We shall see. But the funerals are already starting on Monday.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Dec 17, 2012 -> 09:18 AM) We actually agree here. I was actually at a funeral years back where these assholes showed up. Still I believe they have the right to say what they want, as angry as it might make me. It's one thing to be at a "generic" funeral. But the funeral of a child killed in a fashion and situation like this...? I know the crossing the line and inciting violence or something that will put someone directly into harm's way part of the law...and surely it's something they (WBC) are very careful to avoid, but with things being as touchy as they are, look what happened with Terry Jones burning Korans in Florida. That had real life consequences, although not directly in the area or city where he was located.

Some kids were shot between 3 and 11 times. http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/football...ticle-1.1221800 Victor Cruz's cleats pay tribute to Jack Pinto, one of the victims of the Sandy Hook school shootings. ATLANTA — Every time Victor Cruz went back to the Giants bench and sat down, his eyes immediately fell to his feet and his hands. It’s hard to imagine anyone in the Georgia Dome — not his teammates, his coaches, the fans or the Falcons — were feeling as much emotional weight as Cruz was feeling at those moments. “Jack Pinto, My Hero” was written on one of his cleats and “R.I.P Jack Pinto” on the other. On the back of his gloves, Cruz wrote “Jack Pinto This one is 4 U.!” Cruz was paying tribute to 6-year-old Jack Pinto, one of the 20 children killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., on Friday. The wide receiver spoke to the family on Saturday night and discovered that Pinto was such a Cruz fan the family is considering burying the child in a Cruz jersey. “There are no words that can describe the type of feeling you get when a kid idolizes you so much that they want to, unfortunately, put him in a casket with your jersey on,” Cruz said. “I can’t even explain it.” The acknowledgement felt strange. The tribute felt good. And then the outcome felt bad. Cruz experienced one of the worst days of his pro career, catching three passes for 15 yards and the Giants lost 34-0 their first regular-season shutout loss since 1996. “I’m pretty down to say the least,” Cruz said after the game. “It’s a game that we needed and it’s a game that we wanted to play well in. Unfortunately we didn’t do that at all. To compound that with the tribute that I paid to Jack today, it’s unfortunate. I’m sad about it. As an athlete, we have to go through it and get over it, and as a person I have to keep plugging and understand that I did something good for a good family.” It was the culmination of an emotional 24-hour period for Cruz, whose personable nature has made him one of the most popular Giants in the last two years. He became aware of Jack Pinto after his Twitter feed started to blow up with talk that the 6-year-old had been one of his biggest fans. He instructed his fiancée/publicist, Elaina Watley, to find the family. It took her 20 minutes. She asked the family members if they wanted to talk to Cruz. They did. “I was in the hotel (in Atlanta) and as I was talking to them I was fighting back tears. You could hear everybody in the background crying as well. It was tough to listen to,” Cruz said. He spoke to Pinto’s 11-year-old brother, who was obviously distraught. “He could barely speak to me. I was just talking to him, telling him to stay strong, to stay positive and I’m going to help the family any way I can,’’ Cruz said. All those emotions came flooding back when Cruz went to write the tribute on his cleats and gloves – something that came to him immediately. “It was emotional,’’ Cruz said of taking out the black Sharpie to write his tribute messages. “I was fighting back tears to do it. It felt good.’’ It is not an easy thing for an athlete to perform under such emotional stress. “It’s tough. If anything you try to play for that kid. I’m sure that’s what Victor tried to do. You try to go out and perform,’’ said Falcons tight end Tony Gonzalez. “I don’t want to overstate what we do. It is just a football game in the end, but it does give people a nice escape to go out and enjoy themselves and have a little bit of peace.’’ As soon as the impact of the tragedy struck on Friday, Cruz did what most parents did. He grabbed hold of his 11-month old daughter, Kennedy, and hugged her close and tight. “That night I put my daughter in the bed with me and we slept together, even though that was a mission within itself,” he said. “We slept together that night and it was a good feeling and it was one that I cherished.” It has not been an easy year for Cruz, who is still grieving the death of his grandmother, Lucy Molina, who died in September. He does his post-touchdown salsa dance to honor her. “It’s been an emotional year for me, leading up to this point,’’ he said. “It’s just a matter of getting through it. I have a good support system at home. They’ve been helping me a lot with it. It’s tough. It’s a part of life. You have to go through ups and downs. It shows what type of person you are, what type of character you have when you proceed to go through it in your daily life. That’s what I’m trying to do.’’ It is a message he will try to convey to Jack Pinto’s family when he visits them next week and presents them with the gloves and cleats that he wore in tribute, and tries to help them make sense of something so senseless. .

QUOTE (greg775 @ Dec 17, 2012 -> 12:48 AM) Yeah, they are all sick assholes. One bad thing about them is they include children in their message of hate. They make their kids hold the God Hates XXXXs" signs. They also do something that also angers me. Westboro announced they would picket the funerals of the precious little kids killed by the madman in Ct. Well, they are not a national organization. They are so unlikeable and despicable that they have no real national movement. So that means they'd have to drive or fly to Ct to picket and usually they don't go. So they get the publicity when they can't afford to fly there and do their thing. Now if they do show up, I can always hope somebody messes with them. It's cool their Website has been messed with by Anonymous. I can't get on it. I hate that organization. Bunch of bastards. Definitely where the line between free speech and hate crime/action becomes very blurry. Somehow, I have a hard time imagining the Founding Fathers wanting to protect a CHURCH that presents such vitriolic beliefs as their cornerstone. And you detest the idea of witnessing all those impressionable young kids mixed up in something that's coming exclusively from their parents and grandparents. Seeing all the cemetery crosses at the Branch Davidian compound (in Waco, TX), it reminds you of the human cost in childrens' lives often lost in that type of "cult/sect" situation. http://edition.cnn.com/2011/US/04/14/waco....vers/index.html Thankfully, what mitigates against a recurrence is that nobody believes Fred Phelps is God, except perhaps Fred Phelps himself.

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Dec 16, 2012 -> 11:26 PM) The quidditch community is discussing possibly doing a tournament in Topeka as a protest of the WBC. We most likely won't though as it would only take one hot-head hitting a WBC bastard to make things really bad. I'll just let Anonymous destroy them. You can just see another Ruby Ridge or Branch Davidians/David Koresh situation developing. Seems they are itching for a confrontation, not unlike that Terry Jones guy in Florida with the Koran burnings.

Westboro Baptist Church Home Page www.godhatesf**s.com/ - 网页快照 - 翻译此页您已公开地对此项 +1。 撤消Web Site of Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, KS. Pastor: Fred Phelps. God hates f**s. God hates f**-enablers. Therefore, God hates america and this... Unsurprisingly, their website now seems to be down. Greg lives not so far from their church, Lawrence to Topeka is just a hop, skip and a jump.

http://news.yahoo.com/adam-lanzas-mom-pull...cGFnZQ--;_ylv=3 Apparently, the shooter's mom did have a connection to the school and school district, after all. The aunt of Connecticut shooter Adam Lanza said the shooter's mother pulled him out of Newtown's public school system because she was unhappy with the school district's plans for her son. Marsha Lanza, who is Adam's aunt and Nancy's ex-sister-in-law, called her former sister-in-law an "awesome ... giving person." She also told Evelyn Holmes of ABC-owned-and-operated station WLS in Chicago that Nancy had once been a classroom aide at the Sandy Hook school. "She mentioned she wound up home-schooling him because she battled with the school district," said Marsha. She did not know when Adam had left school. According to former classmates, Adam had attended the local high school at least through part of 10th grade. Adam Lanza (pictured above in 2005) was 20 years old before he died on Friday — it was not yet clear as of Friday evening whether he took his own life or whether it was taken. His brother, Ryan, who was mistakenly identified as the shooter earlier Friday, described his younger brother as having a "personality disorder," either Asperger's or a form of autism, reports ABC News — but he hadn't seen him since 2010, Ryan told authorities, according to The New York Post. Neighbors described Adam Lanza to ABC as "odd" and displaying characteristics associated with OCD. People with Asperger's sometimes display "behaviors beyond their control," according to this med-help.org site. Though there is not much research on the connection between violent crimes and autism, one study found 15 percent of juveniles evaluated in a "forensic setting" in Sweden had autistic spectrum disorders. (Asperger's is no longer classified as a form of autism.) Another law enforcement official told Fox that Adam Lanza had a "checkered past ... troubled youth for most of his life," but CNN is reporting that he had no criminal record. http://news.yahoo.com/adam-lanza-think-kno...cGFnZQ--;_ylv=3 Adam does appear to have had a girlfriend who the AP says has gone missing, along with a friend of his.

The problem isn't medications. 50-60 years ago, we'd still be doing lobotomies frontal lobotomies on "hyper" girls. The problem is that doctors and clinicians still don't have much control over patients, in terms of making assessments whether they are legitimate or credible threats to society. It's still incredibly difficult to get someone involuntarily checked into psychiatric care. For example, we heard that there was one altercation at the school already this week, on Tuesday, involving the shooter. Clearly, the brother knew something was seriously wrong. On the other hand, we want to be a country of freedom/s. We don't want to have panels where doctors can decide who should or should not be taking medication...what the attendant penalties for someone who refuses to take prescribed medication due to difficult and often debilitating side effects should be, these are immensely complicated issues. Clearly, the first line of defense has to be the families and loved ones, but if there's a break in those bonds and relationships, there's no longer enough of a "safety net" to protect communities. There's much less sense of everyone in a neighborhood or community knowing each other than when I was growing up....now, it seems all the kids are staying at home and plugged into their electronic devices and the internet. There are no simplistic solutions here, no quick fixes.

I think this article basically encapsulates Greg's basic position... RSEDITOR OF REDSTATEComing Together By: Erick Erickson (Diary) | December 14th, 2012 at 04:37 PM | 335 At times like this we are told we must “come together.” When you think about, we don’t, as a nation, come together much any more except in tragedy. We used to come together as a nation during the Olympics, when we rooted for Americans. But in recent years we are too often lectured about the jingoism in rooting for America. We used to come together as we sent men and women in to space, but we can’t much afford to do that any more and we don’t. When we come together for most sporting events, we find ourselves divided among friends among teams. We come together as a nation every four years to inaugurate the President, but it is as bitter and divisive as every. About the only time we ever come together as a nation anymore is when savage tragedy happens. When men fly planes into tall buildings or gun down children or shoot up a movie theater, we gather, pray, and cry. It is not healthy for a nation that its only acts of coming together are acts of tragedy, or even charity stemming from tragedy. Our nation once shared a God who we all prayed to. Increasingly, the loudest voices in the nation are hostile to that God and those who worship him. The conversation at times of evil is immediately drown out by political opportunists seeking to drive their agenda. The news channels meditate on the nature of gun violence and gun restrictions or what other restrictions or laws can ever be used. We do that, in part, because in times of helplessness it makes us feel like we can do something. But we can do nothing in the face of evil until we confront evil itself. The tragedy unfolding today is not an act of the insane, but an act of evil. That evil may drive the shooter insane, but in focusing on the insanity we lose focus on the evil. There is really real good and there is really real evil in the world. Each time I have written that here on this site a vocal group of secularists and atheists have loudly chimed in to ridicule me for doing so. They’ll do so again. But in this small window America has a real moment to assess why it is that it is careening out of control morally and socially. In that small window, instead of discussing the politics or the laws, we should discuss the evil and the good and the God from whom we have, as a nation. drifted so far. It is not healthy for a nation to only come together at times like this. It is not healthy for a nation to come together at tragedy so far removed from God.

The aunt also couldn't understand the mass shooting. "Why these kids, why these innocent little kids? That just still baffles me," she said. "I can't understand why." She doesn't believe gun laws should be changed. "It's the person who does the killing, not the gun," she said. "I thank God every day that my kids have faith and know right from wrong -- and I'm not saying her kids didn't -- but you have got to give your kids roots." www.cnn.com But just to play Devil's Advocate, what are the gun homicide rates in countries that do permit guns where there are fewer people who believe in God? I don't know what the official rate in the US is (those professing faith or belief in God/going to church/mosque/synagogue/temple regularly), always thought it was right around 65-75% or so, something like that. Perhaps, for some, it's a logical jump to assume if someone doesn't fear God or "eternal punishment" that they would be more likely to commit an act like this, but there's got to be something more to it than that. Way too simplified. Morgan Freeman's explanation is just as spot-on. We live in a celebrified culture where bigger is better....fame is more important than wealth....where there's a rush to do anything to put yourself in the public eye. Growing up mostly in the 1980's, the idea that someone might deliberately make a sex tape as a "marketing strategy" to launch their careers was pretty much unfathomable. Now, you have to come up with someone even more outlandish, because of the sense of "been there, done that." Look at explosion in reality shows, for another example. Combined with the proliferation of violent movies and video games...these type of things tend to feed upon themselves, with everyone now wondering what will come next. Some will argue that, on an obviously much larger scale, 9/11 was the ultimate celebrity grab for fame by Al-queda....look how much money poured into their coffers from around the world for the following decade in sympathy of their crusade against the US, "imperialism" and "secularist values." Osama bin Laden became the most famous name in the world, pretty much. However, the fact that he took his own life makes you wonder if he really wanted fame in the same way that James Holmes, John Hinckley, Oswald, James Earl Ray, Jack Ruby, Sirhan Sirhan....might have courted. All of them surrendered and were taken into police custody. And Morgan Freeman's right about something else. I can remember to this day the names of the Columbine shooters, but none of the victims.

(Reuters) - Police released the names on Saturday of 26 people shot dead in the massacre at a Connecticut elementary school a day earlier, including 20 children ages 6 and 7, in an incident that stands as one of the worst mass shootings in U.S. history. Six adults ages 27 to 56 - all women - were identified by authorities a day after a heavily armed 20-year-old gunman forced his way into the Sandy Hook Elementary School. Among the children, there were eight boys and 12 girls. There's another area that will get a lot of coverage. Killing 18/26 women/girls. Seems the violence was directed more at women...although you can make the obvious point that almost all of the teachers and administrators in elementary schools are females, so hard to draw a conclusion other than his anger at his mom possibly, and the possible connection to her working as a teacher's aide at the same school. Wonder if we'll get any more details about the confrontation that happened Tuesday at the school, and what could possibly have been done at THAT point to prevent something liket his from happening.

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Dec 15, 2012 -> 03:43 PM) http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/15/...E8BD0U120121215 there goes the 'ban handguns fixes everything' argument. Now it's confusing again. Was the "long rifle" a hunting rifle we don't know about, or was it the Bushmaster semi-automatic assault rifle? Because the cries to get assault guns off the streets definitely won't die down as a result of this. It's even scarier to think he was lining those kids up and executing them with a rifle....methodically. Just can't imagine it.

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Dec 15, 2012 -> 02:46 PM) http://news.ca.msn.com/world/china-stabbin...-schoolchildren So congrats. Knives kill a few less than guns. Get rid of guns, knives next? Then bats? It's going to be interesting to see how many extra security guards most schools use on Monday, if they choose to do so. In the wake of those Chinese stabbings a couple of years ago, there was a visibly increased presence at the gates of all Chinese schools (not only the guards, but Chinese army soldiers). And almost all of the parents were dropping the kids off as well as waiting for them to bring them home. Obviously increasing security guards costs a TON of money, and how many schools/districts/states have those funds lying around for such circumstances? Do parents have a right to expect it? Would people be willing to pay higher property taxes to double the security presence at every school in the country? I don't think so.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Dec 15, 2012 -> 02:44 PM) Rather than ask for you to be banned, I'll say, gee thanks for the intelligent response. I had a scholarship to Northwestern offered to me. I was accepted to two Ivy League schools. Yes I am really a stupid person. I said I might have not explained my position well enough, but rather than discuss it, you go into bombadeer Greg mode. Nice. Thanks. I don't even remember what I said on the Holmes case. This case, I'm trying to point out that those who believe there is a God believe there is justice not only on earth but in the afterlife. If more people feared that, we might be better off. I can't respond to anybody because nobody said what they didn't like about my post, just that I am a dumbs***. I am not dumb. My test scores were off the charts and I was worthy of Northwestern. Bombardier/bombard Just joking with you, Gregster. ALL THE SCHOOL SHOOTING VICTIMS WERE SHOT MULTIPLE TIMES. Just wow.

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Dec 15, 2012 -> 02:41 PM) Di they actually say this? because I read a piece that he TRIED to buy a gun and was turned down because his background check flagged him for something. No, sorry for the confusion. I meant this particular CNN reporter who was just on tv was able to buy an assault rifle in Colorado right after the Holmes/Batman shootings. He said they still have it at CNN...that he never fired it, just wanted to know how easy it actually was to get one in the wake of that particular shooting.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Dec 15, 2012 -> 02:33 PM) 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. One thing you can GUARANTEE. If the son or daughter of a member of the House or Senate was killed inside of a school by a gunman, and they were a Republican member, things definitely might change to the point where there would be some political cover from the NRA. Obviously, I would never wish that on anyone...but you start thinking of scenarios after all the school shootings during the Clinton years, especially Columbine, the movie about it by Moore, more recently the Ft. Hood, Virginia Tech and Aurora shootings. Definitely, when the victims are mostly kindergarten and 1st grade students, that's a whole different animal. People perceive high school students and university students differently. Young children, that age, completely innocent and defenseless, being gunned down in cold blood....that's something that is MUCH MUCH more difficult to shrug off for any parent in this country (especially), this one is definitely touching a different nerve. Probably the most emotional for a lot of reporters for any event since 9/11 in the US.

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. If it comes out he had a history of playing violent video games, then those will be blamed. Mental health systems, budget cutbacks, Autism/Asberger's, that's getting a lot of blame already. Now anyone who has autism will be suspected of possibly being a violent threat, not unlike all Muslims after 9/11. The school security system, since inevitably there will be a ton of lawsuits just because that's the easiest target...and despite the fact that they just changed the procedure to where every visitor had to be buzzed into the building. Dysfunction and polarization in our country and government, not allowing both sides to meet in the middle and compromise on something that makes sense to both sides. Gun dealers/background checks will be blamed. The CNN reporter said he walked into a Colorado gun shop (he was covering Aurora/James Holmes) and was able to buy an automatic rifle for $800 on the spot with just a driver's license. Some will argue that the price of bullets should be exponentially increased, which will create a black market. Some will argue that above and beyond not having a past criminal record, there should be additional testing, like a psychological profile, Rorschach, a couple of other profiling tests (one starts with Minnesota, can't remember the rest of it off the top of my head, etc. Youth apathy/selfishness/self-centeredness.