School shooting in Sandy Hook Elementary School
 

As anyone seen this

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2012/12/...oting-in-conn/

Only a gutless coward would do this

Another scum sucking whimpy punk person who's only wish in life was to have the media go ape over his chicken actions. Start hanging these creeps up in the town center for everyone to spit upon. Stop the media from reporting how sweet these punks are. I'd ban violent movies, music and games. I'd teach what it means to be a good human in school instead of how to use a condom.

Only a di%#less whimp would do such a thing. If ever I wanted one to burn in hell, there is one there.

It's a sad day :(

I was watching the news and two more kids passed away from the shooting for a total of 20 kids.

If such scum sucking whimpy punk people are not taught properly how to use contraceptives, there is a great risk that soon there will be many, many more scum sucking whimpy punk people out there.

Any minute now we'll be hearing how this would never have happened if everyone there at the school had been carrying a gun...

The problem lies with people - always has and always will.
How many guns did McVeigh use at the Federal Building?
How many guns did the 9-11 terrorists use to bring down 4 planes?
If we made heroin and meth illegal, could we get it off the streets?

Typical US gun enthusiast. Yes, one could run amuck with a knife, but that would harm a lot fewer people before one was overpowered.

If someone wants to hunt, a rifle with a small magazine is good enough. If they want to defend their home, a pistol will do; a shotgun is even better. No-one needs an automatic handgun or rifle.

The gun-lovers should have the guts to say they value their "constitutional rights" more than human life. The real trouble is that they aren't clear-headed enough to realise that this is their position.

Warning, personal opinion: I really don't think that the gun lovers really care about constitutional rights. Those rights made sense when the king of England literally was able to invade the country. Nowadays the US of A has the best army in the world, they are a military superpower. It does not make sense anymore for anyone besides soldiers and law enforcement officers to carry a gun.

They have a totally different motivation for not wanting to give their guns away. A gun gives you power, you suddenly have might, you can fire deadly shots with a single pull to the trigger. People like the might and they don't want to give it away. But this attitude leads to situations like that: http://gunsandcrime.org/highs.html

Keep in mind that a) this is my personal opinion, and b) I am generalizing when I speak of gun lovers, there may be some responsible of them.

I am a gun owner and I do care about my constitutional rights, and so does almost every other gun owner that I know.

The fact that the US is a military super power is enough to make me want to hold onto my guns. After all, when there is a military superpower the government is strong; when the government is strong tyranny often comes. After all, England was a military super power and she tyranized over her colonies.Thus, I am defending my freedom and the freedom of others when I have a gun. Also, ancient Rome was a superpower, and she fell, overrun by enemy armies.

No gun lovers don't all like the power that a gun gives you; well, maybe they do, the power to save lives.

Yes, most gun lovers are responsible people. It is the few that aren't responsible.

Finnally, even if gun control laws were implemented the bad guys would still have guns, whereas those of us who are the good guys won't have guns and thus won't be able to defend others.

So, are you? Since 9/11 your government is taking your rights away, is illegally starting wars, kidnaps people from all over the world, ... . Yet I still have to see an American citizen standing up to fight against the tyranny, despite their claims that they would do it and that their weapons are for that purpose.

Really? You need a gun because ancient Rome was not able to sustain their empire? I don't see any logic in that.

So you really think that it is enough to own a gun and once a week shoot some rounds at the shooting range? Man, all that training for law enforcement officers and soldiers that enables them to hit moving targets, keep an overview in dangerous situations, keep calm (master the adrenaline rush, fighting the tunnel vision, ...) must clearly be a waste of tax money in your eyes, since the average citizen seems to be able to do all that without training. Imagine a situation like the Aurora shooting (James Holmes, by the way, bought his automatic rifles the legal way), a dark cinema, suddenly filled with smoke and you hear shots. The trained person knows how to react, the untrained person will be shocked. Now imagine most of the people in the cinema were carrying a gun. What would be their first reaction? Shooting at the persons they see carrying a gun, because they weren't rained to get themselves an overview of the actual situation? Which would be almost everyone?

By the way, most of the shootings that happened in the last time in the USA were not done with illegally purchased weapons.

Ah , this explains the high rate of violent crimes in your country, much higher as in any western country with gun control. Because we can't defend ourselves against the bad guys.

Do you think that music/movies/games are the problems? Must I listen only Katy Perry?
Psychopaths will found another "justification" as the word of a politician, bullying suffered or even only a wrong look in the wrong place in the wrong moment.

<personal opinion>

They are, without a doubt, a part of the problem - actually, quite a significant part of the problem. If I were in charge, I would not want to ban everything that isn't candy-coated mainstream pop... only this (why).

I disagree. When I was a teen I had watch movies, played games and heard music that had violence and I didn't go out and kill nor injured anyone. It is BS. The problem resides in the individual because they're freakin' lunatics.

Right, I beheaded my first enemy back in 1988, when I was 11 years old, I played shot'em-ups, egoshooters (still are) and other "violent" games, I love horror and splatter movies, I listen to Punkrock and Death Metal music (well, I assume that that is what is referred to as violent music, I have problems to imagine violent music) and guess what: still a totally non-violent person. Most of my friends are also gamers, like such movies and music and none of them is violent.

If you look at the history of school shootings in the USA you can see that many of them took place long before those things even existed: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_..._United_States

If you look at the statistics which guns were used in the shootings that happened in the last 30 years it is very clear that more than three quarters of the guns were purchased legally, including assault rifles and semi-automatic handguns.

Now tell me the problems are violent games, not the easy availability of weapons for everyone.

Yes, the government has been taking away our rights and has been engaging in illegal wars. What is this about kidnapping people from around the world? I have never heard of that before. However, thus far the government hasn't been tyrannical enough to warrant our standing up and fighting; at leas for a while, we gun owners will continue the legislative fight for gun rights.

I was pointing out that just because my country, the US is a major super power doesn't mean that it will not fall. Rome was also a major military super power, but it fell as well.

Don't forget, many gun owners in the US hunt (I hunt) and the animals we hunt don't stand still and say 'shoot me' they are running or flying to get away from us. Thus we hit moving targets. I don't think that all of the training that our police receive is a waste of tax dollars; most of the gun owners in the US aren't allowed to carry their guns around which means that the police need training; even if we were allowed to carry our guns around we might not be at a scene of a shooting.

.

They may have been legally bought, but they weren't being carried legally, I highly doubt they had concealed carry permits.

This does indeed explain the high rate of violent crimes. We gun owners can't carry our guns to Walmart or the movie theater, so the bad guys are made more bold. They know that they can kill many people before the police get there. If we were allowed to carry our guns around with us the bad guys would get shot down before they could kill very many people. I've read very many stories that go along these lines: ' There was a man at an armed bank robbery that had a concealed carry permit. This man pinned the armed robber down until the police got there."

For example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalid_El-Masri
Your government kidnaps, tortures, makes action against human rights, but yet:So when do you stand up and fight? When it is you that get kidnapped and tortured, not some random stranger?

That Rome could be invaded by other peoples was a symptom of the fall, not the cause. Rome fell because of political reasons. Guns won't help there.

Of course, they are unarmed and have no other chance than to run away. You are totally safe.
A criminal with a weapon will not do the same, he will charge you, he will shoot at you, he will try to kill you. Do you really think the situation is the same?

So basically you say: the police needs training for the case that armed civilians without training aren't available.
Why do policemen need training, but civilians don't?

They wouldn't have carried them illegally if they wouldn't be able to get them in the first place.

Actually, no it doesn't explain that. In countries with gun control the citizens are also not allowed to carry guns around, so the bad guys have the same situation as in your country, were you can't carry your weapons to every place, but nonetheless is the crime rate with guns involved in your country much higher than in any other western country with gun control.

Or more people would get shot, including the "defender", because the "defender" is untrained and can't handle the situation properly. Just owning a gun does not give you magically the ability to do that, extensive training does.
I have seen many stories that go like this: "There was this man with his legally purchased weapons and he shot down innocent children and other civilians."
Why does your story count as argument against gun control, but the other story does not count as argument for gun control?

I want just to point out how silly you are. How can you say that a gun is a LIFE SAVER DEVICE it's just ridiculous to even think that.

Let me point out that an "armed citizenry" overcoming a modern military is a supremely unrealistic scenario these days. To win, you're going to need to get the military to betray the government and join you (as the Romanians did).

Not at all. Simple fact is that the police can't be everywhere, and owning weapons IS an effective substitute for when the police aren't around and the bad guys are.

Keep in mind that it is not just a question of adding more police. I for one wouldn't want to live in a society where we did have cops on every corner. I suspect that a lot of other people wouldn't want to either.

The question we have to ask is, "What in society is turning out all these violent fruit loops?" Once we answer that question, we can reduce the incidence of that factor and thereby reduce violence.

It does, but you have to change the Second Amendment first. The greater damage isn't from wackos with guns, it's from people who would ignore the Constitution. It says what it says for a reason. Don't like it? Change it.


Propose a new constitutional amendment addressing gun rights, have a full and unhindered debate by society about the proposal, and get the Constitution changed. We have an amendment process, use it.

Not at all. Citizens on the scene using their own guns are widely credited with pinning down Charles Whitman, the Texas Library Tower sniper in 1964 ('65?) and keeping him from killing and wounding more people.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Whitman
The real question is: Would that incident have happened, at least to that extent, if Whitman wouldn't have been able to legally purchase those weapons?
The argument: "People should have the right to legally buy and wear guns to enable them to stop other people from using those legally purchased guns." sounds somewhat weird to me.

So you propose to ignore the Second Amendment?

Now don't get me wrong, I don't think that it is right for my government to do these kinds of atrocities......I am very shocked that the government does these kinds of things; however, with the current state that our government is in I am not surprised. Now that I have clarified how I feel....the US constitution doesn't apply outside the borders of the US, and it most certainly doesn't cover foreigners outside the borders of the US. I would rather carry on this kind of fight in the courts and in the legislative bodies, not with guns; perhaps make it so citizens of other countries are protected from the CIA and other government agencies even when outside of the nation. Though the US is going downhill, it is not yet as bad as the USSR was. If were to get closer to how the USSR or Nazi Germany was, then would be the time to fight.

You say that Rome fell because of political reasons. These political reasons were basically corruption and inept management. The US is now going down the same road. And the inept political management will leak over into the military. Thus we seen that the US hasn't won a war since WII. Vietnam, North Korea, and the various wars in the middle east have all gone down in military history as a defeat for the US. Even if we successfully defeated the standing army of the country we were defeated by armed citizens waging a guerrilla war.

I was merely pointing out that we are able to hit moving targets even though we aren't trained to do so.

You may have a point, perhaps the civilians should receive training from qualified individuals like the Swiss used to do. That was the reason that Hitler didn't invade Switzerland during WWII, he knew that their highly trained militia would defeat his army.

No, there would be a black market of guns that would be run by the criminals. Excluding all of us good guys.

Yes, but I have read some Scottish publications and they have high amounts of knife crimes, I have heard the same for the rest of Europe. So, I guess we should take away all knives and then (since you can smother people with pillows)take away all pillows. Oh.....you can strangle people with computer cables, take away computer cables. Almost everything can be used as a weapon, government can only regulate so much.
I will admit, some people may get shot by the armed civilian; however, in nine out of ten cases the death toll will be less than if the armed civilian had just stood by and watched (or fled). If there was somebody at Sandy Hook Elementry school that had a gun when the shooting started, a teacher, for instance, and was able to shoot the shooter, ten kids may have died, not twenty.

This is ridiculous. The default position should be that an US agency should have to respect other countries citizen's rights, if you specifically have to make them behave that way then there obviously is something wrong.

Knifes usually have a different purpose than stabbing people. like cutting vegetables or what not. Pillows usually have the purpose to make you feel comfortable. Computer cables main purpose is to connect with with other things.

Guns only purpose is to shoot with them, they are intended to be used for killing or at least injuring people. It should be pretty obvious that those things are simply not the same and should be treated differently.

Irrelevant!
 

This doesn't directly bear on whether a citizen can bear arms and use them well to defend others. He can defend others even better if he has the training.

I was being sarcastic; a gun's only purpose is to kill, but you can use a gun to stop a killer. The argument that you made here is an irrelevant argument. An armed citizen can stop a killer from killing, its just that simple. There have been many times and many places were an honest citizen with a gun has defended himself and others.

Would be better to start with: Don't give people easy access to weapons, so that it is much more difficult for the killers to arm themselves.

There also have been time and places were it wouldn't have been necessary when guns weren't so easily available.

Or, of course, escalate the situation into something even worse.

Personally, I don't want to live in a modern day Dodge City where everyone can bear arms because some trigger happy a$$hole might shoot me by accident.

I would prefer to live somewhere I can shoot a trigger happy a$$hole on purpose.

Ah, but even if your average citizen doesn't have access to guns that doesn't mean that the criminal won't.

When? Guns were easily available back in the 1800s, and they were used responsibly. True, there were some shootings, but these were usually rare and far between.

I would prefer to live in a place with as less trigger happy people as possible, so that there is no need to shoot them.

But it is much more difficult for criminals to get them, instead of walking into the next gun store and just buying them.

This alone is a list of school shootings in the US going back to the 1800's. Doesn't seem that responsible to me. And I would account the fact that shootings happened not as often as they do nowadays to population increase over time. In 1850 the population of the USA was ~23 million people, in 2000 it was ~291 million people, over 12.5 times as big.
And one should account technical limitations, in the 1800's there simply weren't assault riffles or semi-automatic handguns, which make it much easier to injure and kill people.

Just the fact that it is harder for them to buy them doesn't mean that they still won't have them. There is no way around it, the bad guys will have guns, and the good guys won't. You can't disprove this fact.
Once again, this is beside the point. I merely brought it up as a side note and has nothing to do with the main argument. However, gun crime statistics have plumeted since 1993.
http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/guns.cfm

So the difference between accepting there is evil in the world vs wishing the world was less evil? I'd love a less violent world, I'd also like to have an option when it is violent.

An interesting article:
http://www.nationalreview.com/articl...ings-john-fund

I give up on this, debating with people that simply are putting their own opinions over facts won't work.
I will leave this discussion with some facts, every single one of them should be weigh enough to at least make some people think about their opinion about gun control. I don't think I have to comment them.

- In the last 30 years there were at least 61 mass shootings in the USA.
- Of the 142 guns used in those incidents more than 2/3 were purchased legally.
- 60% of the worst 25 mass shootings worldwide in the last 50 years happened in the USA, a country with about 4% of the world population.
- Although the rate of assault deaths per capita decreased about 50% since its peak in the 1970s, the rate is still much higher than in other western countries.
- Studies that show that more guns lead to more homicide: http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/research...ath/index.html
- Even within the USA states with stricter gun control have less gun related violence.

Just think about it.

The state of CT is supposed to have the strictest forms of gun control right now, not like it mattered much. I personally don't have any firearms, those who do its their own business. Since this is the most contentious topic out there save for abortion in this country, there is no solution anytime soon on the horizon. So pretty much the most disturbing question out there right now is, not if there is going to be another mass shooting, but when. Sad, but there it is.

Someone posted that the government has already taken so many rights already, fine whatever you say. The government doesn't have to take away your damn guns, they can always outgun you; you got an assault rifle? Fine, the government has tanks, and aircraft, so good luck then there 'Rambo' - but I digress.


My only wish and hope, is that why can't these suicidal assholes just only blow their own god damn head off, and leave the rest of us out of their own problems, but I guess thats just too much to ask I suppose. Its not like you can rationalize their twisted thought process anymore you can rationalize an irrational number like Pi. Just can't be done.

Obviously now nothing can change what has happened, all we can do is just remember the victims, never speak of the one who pulled the trigger.

An article I read today:

http://www.theage.com.au/action/printArticle?id=3897370

Opinion it may be, but I think there is a lot of truth in it.

I'll just say this. Where I come from even the police don't carry guns.

The above event would be nearly impossible to happen.

Usa seems like a very sick country.

...

Stepping it up a notch, the BBC was reporting today that some gun stores in USA were reporting record sales yesterday, and expecting to break those records again today...

Media bias is an incredible thing, I would have thought your police would have weapons to fight off the crocodiles... ;) maybe it's possible the media has blown things out of proportion on the guns in the USA also. I didn't hear much about the school attack in China that happened the same day http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/14/world/...ack/index.html

Basic supply and demand theory. If it's believed an item is not going to be available (real or imaginary threat) in the future, demand increases.

Who's your police force sheriff Andy Taylor and deputy Barney Fife? :)

I would like to point out one last thing.......those who take guns away from the honest citizens are making the non-criminals suffer for the criminals. This is kind of backwards in my opinion, shouldn't the criminals and not the good guys get punished?

I have been in war and I think the games and movies and music are too graphic for anyone. We can't blame machines for actions. We need to blame society.

No one can protect children from such a kook. Everyday we read about a kook in some place in the world doing this. UK has way more murders per capita and yet they ban all guns. Mexico has an almost total ban on firearms yet 50,000 people a year are murdered. Everyday in the Arab world we hear about a kook who blows themselves up and takes 20 or 250 more with him.

Fix the mind and the machines will not be blamed. Like blaming matches for the cause of arson.

That argument is a logical fallacy and is easily proven to be such by looking at the comparative statistics of first world countries.

The simple fact is that gun control works. You don't have to give up your guns completely. You just need to better regulate them. For examples of how to do that, you can look at the laws of pretty much any other first world country.

England, Wales included, compared to the US: murders per capita in the US about 5.7 to 8.7 times (depending on the year) higher
http://gunsandcrime.org/highs.html

Firearm related deaths per 100.000 citizens:
USA: 9.20
UK: 0.25
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...ted_death_rate

Rate of intentional homicide:
USA: 4.2 (total number 12,996)
UK: 1.2 (total number 722)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...ate#By_country

Murders with firearms:
USA: 9,369
UK: 14
http://www.nationmaster.com/compare/...d-States/Crime

Again, just facts, no comments from me.

EDIT: Forgot this one, numbers on the situation in Australia, compared to the time before their gun control laws were implemented (because of a mass shooting, time to pass the law: 12 days):
http://world.time.com/2012/12/17/whe...#ixzz2FNYjNEeX

You mentioned 'kook'

Wasn't this man mentally unstable to begin with?
A psychopath or he had paranoid schizophrenia?

A mentally ill individual that is not medicated can be very dangerous!