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cnn.com/2018/02/14/us/florida-high-scho ... /index.htm

This news sickens me and I'm curious as to why it hasn't been mentioned here. Turns out this most recent mass killer was a white secessionist.

A moral question? Is this a solution? congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate ... e-bill/446

I'm a gun owner, I'm from a family of gun owners. In the U.S. I think the statistic is that about one half of American house holds possess a fire arm.

I'm trying to think where I want to go with this...I think that first and foremost we can no longer accept the idea that guns are not an issue that needs to be dealt with, guns are no doubt a problem. We can debate mental illness but It has to in my opinion take a back seat to the sheer numbers of guns in this country. Something like 300 million fire arms are now floating around the United States...No one can honestly claim that the answer is more guns. In fact the only fatheads making the claims that more guns or more gun toting security agents are the only safe bet are these fathead republicans.

I don't let myself off the hook here. By my past voting patterns I have encouraged these fatheads to do the things they are currently up to.
No honest discussion can exclude the second amendment. Is it possible to tweak the right to bear arms? . Do we need to tweak the right to bear arms? Has not a history of gun regulation not been part of the growth of the U.S.? This country has a history of gun violence,(the Boston Massacre come readily to mind).

The gun control debate is insidious. As we sit in front of television screens watching ghastly details of the latest massacre the congress of the U.S.(controlled by the Republican party) is about to usurp the very states rights agenda they so often claim to be preserving. (what a load of shit is today's GOP).

This is not an answer, in fact it is creepy and suspicious.nationalreview.com/corner/456460/florid ... m-teachers.
Again the rightwing neo-fascist, free-market fundy, social Darwinistic, global warming denialist are just a bit outside. Lets make schools a potential free fire zone. Here's an idea, lets carry GOP logic to the bitter end...lets just arm all kids going to school, if an ibook is required why not a glock?.

Taylor wrote:No honest discussion can exclude the second amendment. Is it possible to tweak the right to bear arms? .

Good post, Taylor. Unfortunately the conversation about gun control has long been influenced by a pro-gun culture that is extremely irrational. The AR-15, which was used in the most recent school shooting, is marketed as a hobby gun. The New York Times reported that in Florida they are easier to buy than handguns. That's a crazy amount of firepower that ordinary people can just go out and buy.

Under the National Firearms Act, destructive weapons like bazookas require registration with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. To own such a weapon you have to submit an application, a set of fingerprints, a photograph of yourself, and a $200 payment, and BATFE may take up to six months or more to approve your first application. Why couldn't we do something like that with assault rifles? Assault rifles are not used for hunting and they are even more destructive than bazookas. They should be lumped into the same category as bazookas.

geo wrote:Assault rifles are not used for hunting and they are even more destructive than bazookas. They should be lumped into the same category as bazookas.

Thanks Geo: I agree hole heartedly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Firearms_Act and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thompson_submachine_gun

These two links provide pretty good info on why this country is very comfortable with gun control laws, and more importantly we have always been secure in restricting what is our right to bear. The second amendment is not so sacred that reinterpretation should be out of the question, in fact, leaving aside my current animosity towards the GOP at the present (remember, I used to be one of them) If tweaking the second amendment is what's necessary for an update to gun laws. In other words, If somehow...the second amendment, as it is currently written, is what is preventing those wonderful republicans from being able to pass, some truly meaningful updated gun laws, then with their majority and their superior thoughtfulness they should be more than up to the task.

Right now, at this crucial moment in the history of the United States the GOP is going to drop the ball, their whole ideology is a copout. They have the unmitigated gall to finger point at notions of gun free zones as being ineffectual, that conservative gun laws are backward thinking and that nationally we need a more liberal approach.

Australians look at America's gun problem as a cultural insanity. When we had a crazed massacre with an assault rifle in 1995 our federal government just banned ownership of them, without at all hindering the rights of those who have good reason to own guns. Your problem is not the second amendment, which any sane reading should see as making gun ownership conditional on involvement in a well-regulated militia. It is the metaphysics, that guns are a magical talisman of liberty and restriction of government intrusion, a symbol of America's pioneer frontier fantasy identity.

Robert Tulip wrote: It is the metaphysics, that guns are a magical talisman of liberty and restriction of government intrusion, a symbol of America's pioneer frontier fantasy identity.

Exactly this.

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Why can't we start with the easy part? If you're a felon, no gun for you. If you've been treated for a mental illness, no gun for you. It was no secret this latest shooter had been in treatment. Many people knew he had guns. No one did anything. How about an anonymous letter to the police: "This man is mentally ill, has made threats on his web page, and owns guns."

I'm not asking for a repeal of the 2nd Amendment, just a little common sense.

With conservatives in charge, nothing is going to change. They are in tight with the gun lobby/NRA who have actually convinced Americans that gun ownership is not just a constitutional right but a god-given one. You hear these people talk: "God, guts and guns are what made this country great!" They spend all their time cutting programs to save money and the first thing to go are mental health programs. Trump just slashed a bunch of that. Then when a massacre happens, instead having the courage to do something about guns, they start carping about the need for better mental health screening and treatment. Hard to do when you're cutting the programs, people. But as soon as the hullabaloo dies down, they do nothing about the mental health thing and nothing about gun ownership. And this is how it will play out up to the next massacre which will probably be in no more than two months time.

It worked like clockwork on this last one. Some kid kills 17 people and right off the bat there goes Trump yacking about mental health but nothing about gun control. And as soon as the public loses interest, the whole thing will start up again. It is largely the public's fault for losing interest. We just let this happen again and again. Then we say something should be done, then we vote the bastards back in who have trying to arm every single person in this country to the teeth. We don't really care. "As long as it ain't my kids gettin' killed!" Already Alex Jones is saying it was a democrat fake incident with crisis actors. We let assholes like this run rampant on the air when they should be shut down and thrown in prison indefinitely. We call this freedom of speech. So I guess yelling fire in a crowded theater is now free speech. If people get trampled to death, they were merely crisis actors in a faked, scripted drama. Alex Jones has more rights to spew false, hateful garbage than the people he victimizes--the families of those killed in these incidents.

This is America. And that's why I no longer have faith in it and don't believe this country can save itself. We're too stupid and selfish. I guess we deserve it.

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/02/17/us/f ... index.html

Florida student Emma Gonzalez to lawmakers and gun advocates: 'We call BS'