Bizarre That We Keep Missing the Point

If you can't afford psychotherapy on your own the drugs are often your only choice since private health insurance doesn't want to cover therapy. It's like the problem with environmental effects of our current pattern of energy consumption. No one wants to try to account for the final overall costs of a course of action in a capitalist system like ours. What does it matter how it affects the rest of society even in less extreme cases if it's bad for an insurer's bottom line? Do they care what inadequate treatment costs their customer? Of course not. They can obfuscate like the oil companies and externalize the costs in order to ignore their own complicity in bad results in the long run.

I agree with you about the easy availability of guns.

To own and drive a car, you have to take a test to demonstrate proficiency of operation. You have to pass a written test demonstrating understanding of the laws and general intellectual capacity. There's a vision test. You are legally required to have insurance.

And most people are able to fulfill these requirements. You not something similar with guns?

I also agree with Jim Satterfield. Everyone knows the insurance companies are out to screw you. And really, that's their job. They're not there to protect you. Their business is calculating risk. If you need help, the cost of your risk is, by definition, too high.

There are a number of states that require certain safety classes, and other requirements, for obtaining a gun permit. When comparing these to driving permits, the problem lies in the inherent difference between the two. Both are fairly easy to obtain without permits (or licenses), but one is much easier to conceal than the other. This makes it easier for police to track/monitor cars, but difficult to understand that guns may even exist on a person (or in a location) at any given point in time.

I agree with Shaun that the availability of guns causes an increase of related increase of violence in our communities. It is important, however, to distinguish between legal and illegal means of obtaining guns and to separate the crimes committed by each when having a discussion about the root causes for said crimes. Each has their own distinctions that need to be addressed separately.

While I am not a gun owner, I am also not opposed to owning one for protection of house and home, or hunting purposes. The results of those that disobey the laws, like in many other sectors of life, continues to hamper the abilities of those that abide by them - rather than find other means to restrict the underlying reasons why such law-breaking exists.

Using the analogy to medicine, it's not an easy pill to swallow that some aspects of society need a complete overhaul. To continually discuss the after-effects and conduct reactionary measures rather than resolve underlying causes for why such situations exist is akin to ignoring a doctor's advice on living healthy and then requesting surgery to repair the results.

I am as appalled and disturbed as anyone by the gun violence in this country, and especially what we've seen occur in schools and college campuses lately. It's another symptom of a culture that is in many ways going off the rails. I wish I knew what the solution to this particular problem was.

I grew up around guns through the 50s and 60s, learned to hunt, and am still a gun owner and hunter today. My Dad taught my brothers and I proper respect for firearms at an early age, and the responsibilities that go along with ownership. But I fear the sort of family I grew up in is in short supply these days; I also fear that most of what young people learn about firearms today comes from the movies, not from a responsible parent.

My sincere view is that the second amendment was intended to protect the rights of common citizens to own firearms. That said, and despite my immense respect and gratitude to the founding fathers of this country, I believe there are aspects of our present day culture that were impossible for them to foresee. I don't know what the solutions are. Additional gun control legislation might be little more than a feel-good, political tool for the left without realistic enforcement, and it will also be a political tool for the right and a rallying point for all the NRA type folks for whom gun ownership takes precedence to all else. Does anyone see any sort of solution that has the potential to be effective while not becoming another excuse for division? Or is division on this issue inevitable?

I come from quite a disparate mix of cultural, educational, and political roots and influences, (which is in part why I am drawn to TMV) and even though I feel that I have a good understanding of all sides of this issue, I can't pretend to have a solution. In many respects it's a case of trying to put the genie back in the bottle, and although it seems like a problem that would lend itself to a common sense solution, common sense these days is, as we all know, not so common.

"It often times is easier to purchase firearms and firearm accessories in the U.S. than alcohol, cigarettes or birth control products."

This type of hyperbole is often used by the anti-gun crowd. The problem with it is it just isn't true. When you get an instant criminal background check buying cigarettes then it will be true until then it's BS. OK so we get that someone thinks guns are bed. So what now? Is there a plan? What do you want to change? Would those changes have made any difference at all in this situation?

I've got an idea that would have an effect. Better reporting for those with mental conditions. If you are on psychiatric drugs then no guns. Of course that would mean your privacy being violated and the govt knowing all about your meds, but it's a small price to pay right? Also if you ever have a "problem" you will be stigmatized for it, but if that will stop the nuts...........

EEllis, I have one phrase for you when it comes to the ease of purchasing weapons. Gun shows. The NRA fights the idea of applying the same rules to them that are applied to other sources of guns like a rabid cornered animal.

Um, if you buy a gun from a dealer the same rules apply no matter where you buy them including gun shows. Have you been to one? Now you can purchase guns from individuals at shows with out any paperwork, but then check the local paper and you will have plenty of guns (in Texas anyway) listed that you can buy with the same lack of paperwork. Guys looking to sell guns will bring them to shows and hang signs on themselves or the guns while they walk around looking at the vendors. When a dealer makes an illegal sale why does it being at a show matter more than at a store? Getting back to my point. So? None of the guns used here were from gun shows. It would of made absolutely no difference. If you attempt to use this to hit us "gun nuts" over the head with, tell me what you would change that would have any effect on this case.