Gunman Kills Four Students & Injures 14 Others

We have the "cowboy myth" and John Wayne branded in our psyche. The Right loves to play to this narrative to stop what you call progressive issues. Funny that we lead in violence, prisoners and bad health care compared to those surrender monkeys in France.

"Would someone with a death wish be deterred by knowing that many of his victims may be armed?"

Well you don't hear about many police stations or army barracks get shot up now do you? I'm not a gun nut but I have serious difficulty believing that outlawing guns is going to put a dent in the ability of nuts to get ahold of them, the same goes for criminals.

Its hard to compare our gun death rates to European nations, we simply have a different culture here regarding them. England has no guns, very low gun death rate. Switzerland has compulsory gun ownership, also very low gun death rate. This leads me to believe our problems do not lie with the mere presence of guns. Also, DC has an incredibly high gun death rate and they outlawed them years ago.

Might was well try to outlaw crazy. Broken people just are trouble and strike like lightning. No use blaming the law.

Slamfu,

Of course you don't hear about that. Why? Because the people who feel they've gotten a raw deal are planning on taking out some of the people they associate with it first. The idea isn't simply to die, but to do so after doing violence to others.

This is what the people voted for and in a just world, all the victims would be NRA members and republicans, the people who advocated these stupid policies.

"Progressive" as in leftist, not as in "more advanced." Don't be dishonest.

One reason is that we have no feudal heritage and aren't class-bound and herd-like.

"We have the 'cowboy myth' and John Wayne branded in our psyche"

That's mainly a Hollywood and leftist myth itself. Plenty of people don't own guns (I do, but others don't), and want nothing to do with guns or shooting; many people, especially in the cities and suburbs, have grown up to associate "gun" with handguns and criminality. (Handguns are short-range, primarily defensive weapons; they are also the weapon most misused by criminals.) Added to this is lunatic anti-gun hysteria. Plenty of people are in favor of truly reasonable gun controls (not "common-sense gun safety measures" [sic]) and even some forms of licensure*. But first this has to be made legal and even before this, we need to dispense with the immature, often-dishonest leftist anti-gun lunacy and practice _true_ common sense when it comes to any kind of future gun regulation.

* Even a crude example is of intellectual appeal to normal people. To get a hunting license, at least at one time, in one location I am aware of, a paper plate was attached to a post 100 meters from a shooter, who was told to hit the target. If the shooter couldn't hit a target that large at 100 meters, no hunting license was granted. Obviously someone should be able to hit what he or she is shooting at! The point here is to restrict the use of guns -- and the USA someday, one can also envision acquisition and possession, if the Constitution is amended -- to those who are qualified. Not "deserving," a loaded word which in our real world means only the wealthy and well-connected will get guns. The issue is qualification.

"I'm not a gun nut but I have serious difficulty believing that outlawing guns is going to put a dent in the ability of nuts to get ahold of them, the same goes for criminals."

In all fairness to the gun controllers -- and it's a warning to lefties to be consistent for a change when it comes to related issues such as abortion or drugs even taxes and their evasion if the taxes are onerous -- that doesn't advocate we surrender or we don't abolish all laws against crime. Reasonable people are deterred from wrongdoing by laws against wrongdoing, and philosophically as well as morally we should seek what is right.

The issue about guns (and other subjects) is of course more complex than merely a choice to say something is right or wrong (no law or absolute prohibition is implied in the simplest cases) and we have to try to be rational, which is something many anti-gun people have problems being when it comes to the issue of guns in the USA.

Too many cannot realize that there are many places in the USA with very high gun ownership and no crime. Guns are a tool of crime (they are effective weapons) but the _real_ problems don't lie inherently in the existence of guns themselves but in how and why there is high crime in some places and among some people but not in other places and with others.

With the USA, it's fairly straightforward. Before gun controllers can expect anything substantial, to be legitimate they must first get the Second Amendment repealed.

And no, the notorious 10,000% tax on ammunition and other cowardly, slimy end-run measures don't escape the prohibition in the Second Amendment.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/15/opinion/15fri...

The NY Times Editorial points out that The National Rifle Association, worked to defeat the California law. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed that will help police apprehend violent criminals and deter the gun traffickers who supply them. The measure requires that all new semiautomatic pistols sold in the state starting in 2010 be equipped with technology known as microstamping, which will allow police to quickly match empty bullet casings to the weapon that fired them.

Yea Gov! This is the kind of incremental progress that makes sense, along with better management of Gun Shows.

I'm just saying, quit blaming the guns and start blaming the lunatic. Don't pass laws to rule me based on the acts of madmen. Society failed to track or notice this man for god knows how long, but now we have a nice simple answer to the problem that will fix everything? I think not.

While liberals of course love anything that infringes in any way on gun acquisition (including higher prices from micro-stamping), wiser people ask: What about revolvers? How long until "semi-automatic" is reported once again dishonestly and emotively as "automatic"? This law doesn't include junk-lawsuit ammo (pun intended) such as defining an unstamped gun as "unsafe" [sic], does it?

Micro-stamping has long been an incrementalist goal of liberals (including mayor Bloomberg in New York, who is a liberal and a Dem even when in GOP drag).

While on the face of it (and while appealing to those swayed most easily by the superficial) this looks little different than "fingerprinting" or reading the unique ID off the axle of a vehicle used in a car or truck bombing, and some of the arguments against it are stretchy, there are legitimate arguments against it:

http://www.nraila.org/Issues/FactSheets/Read.as...

and I am wary of not only any emotion-laced panacea effort but something that may introduce more junk gun lawsuits. (In fact, such lawsuits and misuse of the courts with them is not only outrageous, but a form of sedition.)

"Don't pass laws to rule me based on the acts of madmen."

As a friend of mine in Seattle used to say, who had a very powerful intellect and way with words, but who was an inspiration to me for going for simplicity whenever possible:

"Socialize yourself. Leave me alone."

(That didn't go over well with the collectivists whom he was addressing!)