CBS:
CBS News is reporting that 27 people are dead, including 14 students, after a shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown. The gunman is among the dead.
CBS News’ John Miller reports there is preliminary information that the gunman was the father of one of the students. Miller additionally reports the gunman is 20 years old and is from New Jersey.
The shooter was killed and apparently had two guns, a person with knowledge of the shooting said. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation was still under way. It is not known whether the shooter took his own life or was killed.
Fox Connecticut reports that the shooting began in the kindergarten classroom.
Two students and a teacher were also injured in the shooting and they were taken to Dansbury Hospital, spokeswoman Diane Burke told CBS News York.
Teachers and police escorted students out of the building following the shooting.
@retire05:
says the hypocrite who obviously believes only black people illegally sell guns.
@Aqua:
I’m of the opinion that peoples’ experiences with, and the utility of, guns varies widely based on where they live. I live in an area with a high population density. If I call 911, the police will respond within minutes. If I discharge a firearm in my house and a bullet goes out a window, there’s a high likelihood it will hit a neighbor’s residence. These are all reasons I don’t believe having a gun in my house would keep me safer. Someone living in a rural area could have circumstances that drastically alter that equation. I acknowledge that. Local gun laws make a lot of sense to me for that reason: New York City and Montana, for example, are very different places and should have different policies relating to firearms. The problem of course is that it’s easy to transport a firearm across a state border. So if one state is going to have unreasonably permissive standards for the sale of guns, do the residents of a bordering state have the right to question whether a federal policy is necessary?
@johngalt:
Excellent points, John. However, I think it’s important for gun proponents to see it from the other side’s perspective too. I don’t own a gun. I respect the right to do so, but in a practical sense, any interaction I have with a gun is likely to be on the receiving end. The right exercised by others to own guns does nothing for me but make my life more dangerous. You might counter that society is safer as a whole because of law abiding gun owners, but we have plenty of data that would call that assumption into question. Developed countries that have strict gun control have far fewer homicides than the US. So this right does come with a cost. I think what bothers many people who want stricter gun control is the lack of any leeway from the opposition. It seems like any law that regulates the sale of a firearm is deemed excessive. I’m sure there are purists who believe any weapon, up to and including a nuclear warhead, should be legal to purchase, but most people agree there is a line. So why is it wrong to question where that line is, and whether that line should include assault rifles? That seems like a perfectly reasonable debate to have. What good do permissive laws regarding background checks do for anyone besides criminals and gun manufactures?
When people talk loftily about standing on principle, they should be mindful that it can quickly take on the air of the fetishization of a principle raised above modern reality and public safety. I don’t know the answer either, but the one thing we can be sure of is that this will happen again and again if nothing changes.
According to the coroner, each victim at the school was shot from 3 to 11 times.
I think an obvious question arises: What sort of firearms do members of the general public really need for hunting, for personal protection, or for home defense?
I’m not suggesting a ban. I’m suggesting special licensing requirements for high-capacity, military style weapons, which were designed for a very specific purpose. In my opinion, a tool designed for that specific purpose has no place in the average civilian’s tool kit.
@Greg:
Greg the mom was an avid gun collector.
She had guns of all sorts.
Even antiques.
Seems like he knew just which of them to take with him that day.
@Tom:
Obviously, you think that people like Suzanna Hupp and Joel Myrick are the exception to the rule and not the norm. Oh, you don’t know who they are? No surprise. The leftist media never reports those who own guns that save lives, only those who take lives.
Suzanna Hupp, a Texas chiropractor, was having lunch with her parents at the Luby’s in Killeen, Texas. Dr. Hupp was the owner of a concealed carry permit, but following Texas law at the time (making her a law abiding gun owner) left her hand gun in the glove compartment of her car because at that time it was illegal to take a gun into any business in Texas.
While she was enjoying lunch with her parents, a creep drove his pickup truck through the front window at Luby’s, exited his vehicle and proceeded to shoot anyone/everyone in sight. Dr. Hupp’s father rushed the shooter, only to be killed. She testified in front of Congress that she reached in her purse to retrieve her weapon, only to realize it was still in her car. The shooter murdered her father, her mother, 21 others and wounded 20 more. Would she have been able to stop the shooter so that no one died? Probably not. But there is no doubt that anyone who has gone through the training it takes to get a concealed carry permit would have been able to save some people from being slaughtered. Not to mention that particular Luby’s is not far from Fort Hood, and there were a number of firearm trained military there that day.
October 1, 1997, Luke Woodham walked into Pearl High School in Pearl, Mississippi with a .30-30 deer rifle. He shot dead two female students, and wounded 7 others. When Woodham heard the alarm go off, he knew that the police would not be far behind. But Woodham also had to know, being a resident of Pearl, that the police force was small and would concentrate at the high school. So he walked out and got in his car to go the the Pearl, Ms. junior high school where he intended to shoot even more kids. But he had a problem: Joel Myrick.
Mr. Myrick was a teacher at Pearl High School. When he heard the gun shots, he ran to his car, retrieved his hand gun, loaded it, and caught Woodham at Woodham’s car. He stuck his gun to Woodman’s head and ask him “Why are you shooting my kids?” Myrick held Woodham at gun point until the police arrested him. It was learned later that Woodham had beat his mother, and slashed her throat, killing her while she slept. There is no doubt that Joel Myrick saved the lives of children at Pearl’s Jr. High. The tiny police force would have been concentrated at the Pearl High School, and he would have been basically free to continue his rampage save one brave teacher who wasn’t ready to let him do that.
You are wrong that those of us who legally own guns make your life more dangerous. If anything, we make your life safer because our purpose, during cases like the two above, is not to just save our own lives, but to stop the person creating the carnage of others. Had the circumstances of your birth, and life, been different, you could have been one of the victims of either one of those shootings, and at that point, you would be praying for someone with a concealed carry permit to stop the madness.
Your chances of being killed by some criminally insane shooter is small compared to your chances of being killed in an auto fatality. Do you not think that everyone else’s right to drive a car makes your life more dangerous? Where are you willing to draw the line so that you have perfect safety?
We can never guarantee that our children will be totally safe. Life doesn’t work that way. And making gun laws even more restrictive will only give the bad guys an added edge. Gun “free” zones don’t work. Woodham, the Columbine shooters, the shooter yesterday, none of them were deterred by gun laws. Only law abiding citizens, and law abiding gun owners, respect gun “free” zones. Once you realize that, you will understand why it is necessary to allow honest people to own weapons, not only for their personal protection, but for yours, as well.
@retire05:
You might have noticed we have laws surrounding driving. There are minimum age requirements. Prospective drivers have to pass a test and be mentally and physically competent to operate an automobile. Once granted the privilege to drive, drivers are expected to adhere to many different “rules of the road”, such as speed limits. The government decides which vehicles are safe enough to operate on our roads. I am aware of no one who considers taking a driving test, or operating only vehicles deemed safe, to be infringements upon their Constitutional rights. Do you not believe the serious responsibility of owning a gun, and guns themselves, demand similar barriers to entry and scrutiny?
And where exactly did I call for a ban on ownership? Like some in the gun lobby, you insist on seeing only two extreme possibilities: zero regulation or zero guns. That’s an insipid simplification that’s nothing more than an obtuse pretense to shut down serious discussion.
@Tom:
Why, yes, we do, Tom, just as we have laws surrounding guns. But those laws do nothing to prevent someone from driving without a license, drunk, under the influence of drugs, or with a suspended license, do they? And I would go so far as to say that the laws concerning who is allowed to carry a weapon, and who is not, are much more stringent that the laws concerning who we allow to drive. No state that I know of, allows illegal aliens to obtain a carry permit, but a number of states allow illegals, who can’t read English (the language of STOP signs) to obtain driver’s licenses.
And yes, I perfer ZERO regulations on gun ownership, as long as it is the failure that it is. Over 500,000 guns a year are stolen, only to be used by those who could not get a license, or pass a background check, and are the ones who are committing most of the gun-related crimes. So what good are gun laws and gun registration when it doesn’t work? All it does is serve to give some bureaucrat’s cousin a job in the gun registration office. On top of that, the 2nd Amendment doesn’t say one word about a license.
In my state of Texas, in 2009, there were 65,561 felony convictions. Out of that number, only 101 had concealed carry permits. It is not law abiding citizens that are killing their fellow Americans, Tom, quite the contrary. It is law abiding citizens who carry guns that are reducing the crime rate.
Oh, and don’t think you lack of response to my suggestion that people like Suzanna Hupp and Joel Myrick make your life just a little bit safer. It is hard to disagree with actual fact, isn’t it?
In 2007, according to the NVSS, 12,632 Americans were killed in gun related murders. Compare that to the 30,527 people in the U.S. that were killed in auto accidents the same year (NHTSA stats). Now, those on your side of the aisle will scream and holler how we need more rigid gun laws. But never do they scream and holler for less cars. Instead, the government now props up the making of more cars.
If we are so worried about human life, then we need to outlaw cars. We need to shut down the airlines (almost 3,000 dead in one day using the system of crashing large planes into tall buildings), yet, it is only guns that the left wants to elimiate.
@Tom:
Well at least Tom we know you are a Hypocrite but that doesn’t change much in this matter of discussion. In respect of the dead, keep your bigotry to yourself.
And it’s seems Tom’s still playing the, “I’m afraid to defend myself because I don’t want to play, ‘Hero'”. A Janitor risked his life to warn the entire school to help warn other teachers. If anyone on that grounds was allowed to take proper defense measures the gunman would have been stopped sooner, not later especially if there were shotguns loaded with beanbag rounds or ring foil rounds. And it doesn’t help that the shooter killed his mother, stole the guns she owned, and used two handguns in a State that has some very tough ownership laws to start with. It seems Tom would rather be subjective to a Police State than defend himself no matter the costs. Fine, live in your world Tom but the more we strip people the means to defend themselves the more of these horrors will happen.
I like to point that my previous Middle and High Schools respectively had Bomb Threats and later a shooter threat made against the schools. The High School Principles and assistant staff were carrying concealed fire arms while working in tangent with issued On School duty Police due to the threats being deemed real in the 1990’s. Inactivity and being passive in the face of any danger or ignoring the warning signs (which now comes to find that the Neighbors were pointing that the shooter had very violent behaviors) is only going to encourage those who wish to cause damage to pick such people who perfer to be passive and not defend themselves. One sided shootings last seconds and by the time the police arrive the damage is already done, playing passive and thinking that not taking action to defend yourself is greater than taking action leads to your death.
@retire05:
Apparently you see no difference between an intentional act (murder) and an accident. But I have a better statistical comparison: 41. That’s how many gun homicides took place in England and Wales in 2007 (the year this data was assembled). That’s less than double how many people were killed in CT in one gun-related incident. You keep telling me how much safer I am because people like you and Nancy Lanza have guns. How do you square that with over 10,000 gun fatalities every year in the US compared to less than 100 in England? So if we have even more guns that number will magically go down? You’re deluding yourself. At least be honest about the cost of 270 million guns in America and gun laws written by the gun industry. And it’s not just a question of the number of guns, or taking guns away. It’s about regulation, gun laws and enforcement. Take Canada, a country with close to 10 million guns, one of the highest ownership rates in the world, and less than 200 gun-related murders. We are talking about laws that wouldn’t impact the rights of any upright citizen to own a firearm, yet many people who fit that definition, such as yourself, refuse to even consider them despite mountains of evidence, mountains of bodies, that shows the US approach is completely broken.
@Mr. Irons:
I’m afraid to defend myself? I have a softball bat under my bed and I can hit a softball over 300 feet without breaking a sweat. What do you think I’d do to a man’s head who illegally entered my house? Perhaps some men need a gun to feel brave, but not everyone.
You honestly think Wales and England had that few gun crimes? Wales itself is having a serious Gun smuggling problem and the English Police have comment that there were more gun related murders than their understaffed forces can even investigate. Please try again.
And a Softball bat means nothing to 12 gauge buckshot or .45 hollowpoint. All it’d be is either splintered wood or a trophy for someone who deals with you 6 feet away. You want real defense instead of a bat, get a knife if you’re wanting to get that close. You’ve never really been in a fight before have you? Blunt force weapons like a bat won’t really do good against someone on PCP or wearing armor, which a few gangs have now gotten smart to wearing sadly in my parts.
Edit: And I forgot to add, since you want to use a bat on someone who breaks into your house. Make sure you either kill them or run them off. If you use the bat you would then face possible battery charges by the intruder due to how the crime system is being used these days.
And a little something from Tom: http://articles.kwch.com/2012-12-12/homeowner-shot_35781282
@Mr. Irons:
Feel free to provide data to dispute the statistics I posted if you disagree.
That’s wonderful that someone defended their home from an invader. I mean that. Remind me again where I called for a ban? It’s just too bad homicidal maniacs will murder innocents at will for the foreseeable future because people selfishly refuse to acknowledge the obvious.
@retire05, #56:
I’ve lived in the same town where I am now for over 30 years. I can’t think of a single local instance where having a gun saved someone’s life. I quickly can think of half-a-dozen local instances of domestic homicides or domestic homicide/suicides over just the past few years. I get tired of the argument about firearms saving lives. I don’t deny that it does sometimes happen, but if my very normal little town is any indication, the examples of that are statistically insignificant when compared with the other sort of cases.
For you Tom, since 2009 and due to a problem with staffing for the UK Police gun violence has increased not decreased:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1223193/Culture-violence-Gun-crime-goes-89-decade.html
Oh and a lovely new issue: Gun Renting in the UK
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-20019914
Leftists make up new laws that restrict and burden law biding citizens and those who seek do break the Law will still ignore the Law and do what they want to do.
And frankly Greg, since you said you had military history you should know firearms are nothing more than an inert tool until a person takes it and uses it for a various of reasons. Law breaking individuals will always go with the most lethal tools they can get their hands on to break the law. The shooter in CT and the shooter in CO had the full extent of causing as much mayhem as possible, least we also forget the Chinese stabbing spree that put 20 children in critical condition by “offical” reports while listing the children dead by civilian reports. The left focuses on the weapon as the root cause, typical as they ignore that there will always be people going to break the laws no matter how many are placed on the books.
@Mr. Irons, #65:
The point, as I see it, is that various semi-automatic firearms which were designed specifically for military purposes empower to a degree that generally exceeds any legitimate civilian need.
It could be rightly said that a fragmentation grenade is nothing more than an inert tool, until a person takes it and uses it for various reasons. The fact that this is true doesn’t strike me as a sound argument for the proposition that civilians should have access to them.
Tom and Greg I too have lived in communities in N.Y., FL. and Ca. over the last 60+ years and have never seen or heard of a single local case of someone saving their life or a family members life because they possessed a firearm.
I am not against weapons, The Marines taught me to shoot and I was a Range Officer my last six months.Do civilians have a need to possess automatic weapons?
I do believe SOMETHING must be done to curtail the killing of innocents in our country.
Aqua I had no idea scholarships were offered for weapons proficiency. Old Miss Bulldogs you say?
Semper Fi
the first priority is to put GOD in all the schools of the all the STATES
with for sure THE 10 COMMANDS OF GOD,
guns don’t kill people kill
does anyone know if there is a part of the training and check up for owning gun.
of the person ability to limit anger?
@Tom:
And that’s the great thing about America; our 2nd Amendment right includes the right to not carry a weapon. In Switzerland, they have no standing army and all men between 20 and 30 are conscripted for military training and must keep weapons in their homes.
I lived in an apartment for a while when I first got married. My .45 stayed in a safe, but I kept a shotgun handy. I loaded it with bird shot. That way, if I had to fire my neighbors were safe, but a would-be robber would be hurting enough to reconsider any misdeeds.
@Greg:
I will refer you to a twitter exchange between Piers Morgan and Carol Roth:
Piers was quiet after that.
I did a little research yesterday and was shocked to find the worst school massacre (for lack of a better word), was in 1927. Google Bath School Disaster.
Evil exists and tragedies happen. We can prepare all we want, but a determined monster will find a way to perpetrate evil. For every 100 we stop, it only takes one to break our hearts.
@Richard Wheeler:
Yes sir. ROTC rifle teams are big time. Also used my performance record for my Air Force Academy application. Grades are not enough for the military academies, so captain of the rifle team and ten perfect competitions helped a lot.
@ilovebeeswarzone: Sometimes it seems like it!
In CA there is SO much paperwork and a 30 day wait.
I imagine if one loses one’s cool at a gun dealer that might just weigh in on getting the gun.
@Aqua:
True, but that ignores obvious measures that can be taken to reduce the likelihood of evil being successfully perpetrated. Nicholas Kristoff points out the following: “Children ages 5 to 14 in America are 13 times as likely to be murdered with guns as children in other industrialized countries,” And this regarding Australia’s 1996 legislation on assault weapons:
In America we accept all sorts of regulations relating to public health and safety, but in this one area the gun lobby and manufactures have very successfully re-positioned a public safety issue as a Constitutional issue or a “black helicopter” issue, and even blocked attempts to research gun violent by the CDC. Gun owners like to point out that criminals, often with illegally procured guns, commit most gun crimes, but this ignores the causality between the demand for firearms, the unfettered access to firearms, and the sheer number of firearms in circulation making it exponentially easier for criminals to procure guns. It would be wonderful if gun owners themselves took the lead on this and told the gun industry, we don’t need military style assault weapons for personal protection or hunting; or if they said, I’m willing to wait 30 days, and deal with an inconvenient background check, and limit the number of weapons that can be purchased at one time, if it might reduce gun violence in America.
even the CHURCH HAD VIOLENCE THREATS,
where does it come from
the killer is dead, is there other evil in there,
awful and scary, the devil is here,
no human can conquer on the DEVIL,
the only one is GOD WHO HAS THAT POWER,
the DEVILS was made at the image of GOD,
AND THROWN ONTO EARTH AS A PUNISHMENT FROM GOD,
THE DEVIL has power to show himself as a god
Nan G
yes you found the probable check up,
one that does identify but being hidden as to be for that end,
it make sense too
bye
one at FOX, just question, how are they going to feel safe going back?
there is the answer ,
the children will feel safe knowing GOD is talk about, and sent prayers from all the class including the teacher, they will feel safe of the power of GOD is the top one, THE MOST PROTECTION,
when I END UP IN AN ORPHENAGE AT 5, SEPARATED FROM MY SISTERS,OLDER THAN ME
ALWAYS PLAYED WITH ME AS THEIR DOLL.
I found myself as I went to bed, talking to GOD, TELLING HIM THAT NOW THAT MY FATHER
WAS DEAD AND MY MOTHER TOO,
TELLING GOD HE WAS NOW MY FATHER AND SHOULD ANSWER ALL MY DEMAND AND QUESTIONS,
IT WORKED ALL MY LIFE, AND I FELT SECURE EVEN IN THE SCARIEST TIME WHICH I LIVED,
YES I believe he is there waiting for us to ask his protection. even against ourselves,
geez, I THOUGHT I had forgotten that memory
@Tom:
I want a DPMS Sportical, have wanted one for quite a while, and plan on getting one. It looks like an assault weapon. I want it for personal use, mostly for target shooting. I like shooting, and the .308 is very accurate. It could also be used for hunting if I wanted to hunt. I’m not a big hunter though.
I have no problem with this. I also favor closing the gun show loophole. But we need to be willing to actually enforce the laws that are passed; something that is not taking place today.
Also, (and this isn’t aimed at you) why do we all have to find blame in the left or right after something like this? Is political capital so important that we have to start the spin literally minutes after something like this happens?
Tom and Aqua I find your reasoned, enlightened and respectful discussion the best at F.A. in the time I’ve been here. Thanks
Aqua
I don’t understand why the SCHOOLS, don’t hire a VETERAN, they are trained for quick response on demand, they are sharp shooters and represent security,
the union money could be cut so to make room for a good earning to the VETERAN,
access to all the spaces in the school, he would be an asset to a school
more than expected
they are well read in foreign knowledge so to answer questions from the young people.
I can see the young feeling secure, I can see the VETERAN happy to be the one to care for SECURITY.
he would be worth gold in there
IT make us cry,
imagine those who lost their child, they are submerge in an ocean of sadness,
and CHRISTMAS IS AT THE DOOR,
@Tom:
What part of the gun laws that currently exist do you think works? Do you think making obtaining a gun even harder, no matter the caliber, is going to affect anyone other than law abiding citizens? If the gangbangers of Chicago ignore current gun laws,, what makes you think they will pay attention to new laws?
Can you prove that one gun law has ever stopped a madman who wanted to murder someone? And if he can’t get his hands on a gun, what will prevent him from going Chinese and slashing throats? Or have you forgotten that the kid that did this horrible thing in Pearl first killed his mother by slashing her throat?
Ironically, when this tragedy in Connecticut first happened I mentioned X-boxes which you scoffed at. Now we learn that the shooter was an avid “gamer.” There is a strong possibility, that because of his mental illness, he became unable to tell the difference between a game and reality. Shooting all those kids simply became part of the game.
So while you say what gun owners should, and should not do, I see you never mentioned our acceptance of a culture that is really, really getting sick. Or perhaps comments by the likes of Jamie Foxx, who said that in his most recent movie he gets to kill white people and “How cool is that?” In a sane culture, Jamie Foxx would be shunned to the point where he would be begging on the streets of L.A. for his next meal. Instead, he’ll be part of the Administration’s Hollywood crowd while the Dems look for campaign donations.
This nation passed a law making schools gun “free” zones. How is that working out? Do you think the Columbine, Virginia Tech, Pearl and Connecticut shooters said to themselves “Oh, gee, I can’t go in this school and kill kids. It’s a gun free zone.” No, they knew those schools were areas of no resistance.
Your way doesn’t, hasn’t and won’t work. Bad people will always find a way to do bad things and if they can’t do it with a gun, they will do it in other ways with other tools.
@Aqua:
I agree.
@Richard Wheeler:
Thank you, Rich, for setting a respectful tone.
@retire05:
Well it’s beyond question that making it harder to obtain guns makes a society safer from gun violence. We see it in other industrialized nations that have stricter gun laws and have .0001% the number of gun homicides. So that’s a strange point to make. If everyone agreed it were just about making us safer, we already know that eliminating guns is an answer. Of course we know that’s never going to happen in America, nor have I stated it should. But acting like 270 million guns in America have no connection to an epidemic of gun violence is self delusion.
“Going Chinese”? Um, okay.
I’m not sure what your point is here. If guns aren’t more deadly than knives then what’s the point of having guns for self defense? We know that this killer emptied three 30 round clips into 20 helpless children and several heroic adults in less than 10 minutes. That speaks for itself.
You have a bad habit of advancing losing arguments over and over. Again, I point out that Japan (really the cradle of gaming with Nintendo and Sony PlayStation), not to mention Canada or the UK, have just as high a rate of gaming as the US. So is gaming or guns the variable that accounts for the enormous murder disparity between the US and Japan? I am not saying that the culture of violence is not partly to blame. But a spark needs fuel to start a fire.
Always with the more guns. I for one think it’s madness to even consider asking kindergarten teachers and principals to carry around guns. How can we ask these people to do that? It’s insane. Metal detectors or law enforcement officers stationed outside I consider to be much more reasonable solutions, but still just band-aids.
…except in every other industrialized country in the world with stronger gun control, where they’ve virtually eliminated gun murder, while we still have over 10 thousand a year.
IF I think of GEORGE ZIMMERMAN, It tell me that the law is very harsh on one who shoot to save his life,
AND I saw how they frame him, by hidding the real picture of his wounds,so to make him a villain,
so there is no doubt that part of the law is in need of the opposite of what is suggested,
this men is still in shackle in prison and was refuse the lawyer request to get him out,
that is a second judge on top of that replacing the other for being not fair, this new woman judge
answer to the LA RONDA MAKING A FIT WHEN IT WAS ASK BY O’MARA,
SHE DID NOT WAIT TO LONG TO REFUSE,
so, a citizen who is suppose to save his life by shooting his attacker, will maybe put his life on the line by hesitating to shoot his attacker, and lose his life for a few seconds of waiting. or if he does kill
the attacker, he might end up in hell for a long time.
so if OBAMA WANT TO CHANGE THE LAW, HE BETTER THINK VERY CAREFULLY
THAT THE SHOOTER MIGHT ALSO BE THE PROTECTOR AND HE SHOULD MAKE THE DIFFERENCE,
OTHERWISE HE CAN HELP THE WRONG PERSON,
you cannot take the guns of LAW ABIDING CITIZENS HAVING THE RIGHT TO HAVE THEM,
what if the teacher had been found worthy to carry a gun,
and trained accordingly,
she would have shoot the guy first as he enter,
frankly, how come there was no security in SCHOOL,
JUST STOP AND THINK A MINUTE, NO WAY TO DEFEND THE
6 AND 7 YEAR OLD FROM EVIL,
IT IS NOT RIGHT TO THINK IT WILL NEVER HAPPEN TO YOU,
THEY HAD A MORAL RESPONSIBILITY TO HAVE SECURITY JUST IN CASE, BUT NOTHING, WELL THAT IS TEMPTING THE DEVIL,
IS IN IT? AND THE PRICE IS TOO HIGH
@Tom:
In understand your viewpoint on guns and murder rates, Tom, but I think your statistics are a little off. Although, to be fair, my own search has netted a bunch of different sites detailing the statistic, but most have information from completely different years, as well as compiling information to compare various countries, but all from different years. In other words, not very accurate information. An informal average shows the US to be ranked somewhere around 10–20 of all nations, and number two, or number one(if one discounts South Africa as an “industrialized” nation).
There is, however, one statistic that I noticed that is interesting, and kind of supports the claim that “if murderers didn’t have access to guns, they would find another way to kill”. That is, and again this is more of an informal average taken from various websites, that the US experiences approximately 5-6 murders per 100k people. Of those murders, 3-4 per 100k people are committed with firearms, leaving about 2 that are committed with other weapons. Most of the other ‘industrialized’ countries listed have between 1-3 murders per 100k people, with around 1/3 of those committed by firearms and 2/3 by another means. Again, that seems to show that if someone has an inclination to kill someone, they are going to find a way to do so. Even if they are incensed enough to commit mass murder (bombs and the like).
What’s more, in considering the numbers of murders committed, I’d say that the society itself has much to do with motivations for people to commit murders.
I guess that what I’m trying to say is that guns only make it easier to commit murders, but are not really involved in the motivation to commit a murder, or murders.
@johngalt:
I completely agree. But at what point does a society hit a tipping point where an element, like our current saturation with and the deadliness of guns, becomes so inherently dangerous that it demands action across the board from a large swath of the population? What’s interesting is that I think everyone feels that moment is here, but we see people like Retire saying the answer is more guns. Obviously, I disagree with that, but it is telling that there is this general agreement that the current situation is intolerable.
Not necessarily in response to you comments, but I found this observation by conservative David Frum very interesting:
A sample of the reaction to President Obama’s speech in Connecticut (which preempted football)
http://deadspin.com/5968935/take-that-nigger-off-the-tv-we-wanna-watch-football-idiots-respond-to-nbc-pre+empting-sunday-night-football?utm_campaign=socialflow_deadspin_twitter&utm_source=deadspin_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow
TOM
you are on the negative side,
it should have been the opposite ,
GUNS, MAKE IT EASY TO PROTECT YOURSELF,
then you bring other facts, like stealing guns make it easy to commit murder
because you are stealing it to shoot someone,that’s what the murderer did,
his mother should have never showing her collection to him she knew to be mentally sick,
she even teach him to shoot, she also was a sicko,
again she tempted the devil, she died
TOM
DAVID FRUM MUST BE ON THE OTHER PLANET,
THE BLACK HOLE PLANET,
AND TOM, THE OTHER ONE IS DISGUSTING,
WHY DO YOU BRING THAT HERE?
@Tom:
You continue to ignore that the worst school murders happened not recently, but 85 years ago. And not with a gun, but with explosives. Timothy McVeigh did not use a gun, nor did the 19 radical Islamists who hijacked four planes that killed almost 3,000 in just a few hours.
Also, can you prove that X-boxes, and the games that go with them, are as popular in Japan and the UK as they are here? What percentage of minors owns those in the U.S. compared to Japan and the U.K. Because if you are going to make the vague claim that the children of those nations are equally exposed to the violent games that are sold here, then you are going to have to prove that.
Tell that to the Israelis. And when was the last time there was a school shooting in Israel?
You seem to think that more restrictive gun laws would eliminate murders in the U.S. How’s all those restrictive laws on drugs working for ya, bubba? And have you ever looked at a map where school shootings have actually occured? Ironically, the state with the most school shootings is California. Guess it is all those lax gun laws there that allow criminals to get their hands on those weapons. Two states with some of the least restrictive gun laws in the nation, Arizona and New Mexico, have had ZERO school shootings, and Texas only two and only one of them saw a death of anyone.
If you are so worried about the deaths of Americans, I suggest you lobby to make vehicle ownership even more restrictive since in 2007, three times more Americans died in traffic fatalities than because of a firearm.
@Tom:
Ummm, guess you were not interested in the twitter comments that were made when the Pope started his Twitter account. Nah, Tom, there is nothing biased about you at all.
@retire05:
You seem to have a real difficulty with cause and effect. In your worldview guns don’t cause gun deaths; it’s hypothetical guns that weren’t there that cause gun deaths (or something like that). Having a rational discussion about guns demands that there be a frank acknowledgement of the cost of that privilege, something that you seem childishly incapable of admitting, even in light of the massacre in CT, and even in light of your admission there are costs to other freedoms, such as the freedom to travel by car. America will always have guns, but if gun owners and those in favor of gun control are going to settle on a rational gun policy, part of that discussion is how to limit that cost, that danger, while still respecting the rights of law abiding gun owners. We will never outlaw or eliminate guns, but it’s foolish to pretend that the cost isn’t real, and that’s something every gun owner should think about in the coming debate.
I’m flattered you consider me omniscient, and that if I don’t specifically comment on something, that in and of itself is revealing, but at the risk of shattering your worshipful faith in my knowledge of current events, I have no clue what you’re talking about.
@Tom:
I realize your last part of #86 wasn’t necessarily in response to my comments, but I would suggest that Frum is wrong to write what he did. The reason for the Second Amendment has nothing to do with hunting, and very little to do with home defense. It has everything to do with providing the citizenry a means of protection against an overpowering and tyrannical government. So, for the politicians, and supporters of them, to suggest that a disarmament, even a partial one, of the citizenry is necessary, when they are part of the government that can become(and some would argue is becoming) tyrannical over the citizenry, is just wrong. The very people that the Second Amendment enables you to protect yourselves from, telling you to disarm yourself. Doesn’t make a lick of sense.
It is amusing that as I was sitting down to watch that game, and the President came on TV, I told her that millions of fans of the NFL were going to be upset, no matter who they support politically.
One could argue that at a time like this, with what happened Friday, and the prevalence of commentary on it(60 Minutes, for example, dedicated a large portion of their show to it), that people needed an “escape” from thinking about it. It could also be argued that at a time like this, that there is no more important thing to be thinking about, or watching, or discussing. And both would be right, in my opinion.
As for the speech, it was good all the way up until he started making it political about gun control. In my opinion, this is entirely the wrong time to start suggesting any type of gun control. Why? Because everyone is still emotional about what happened, and at times like this, people tend to overreact to whatever happened, and stricter measures than necessary are usually taken. Which tends to be why the knee-jerk reactionaries suggest talking about taking away guns at times like these, because many people allow their heart to overrule their head.
Also, as an addition to what I wrote in #85, about murder rates in various countries, is this;
That the difference in makeup of the murders committed in the various countries is based solely on availability of weaponry. But above that, that the difference in total murders committed by the various ‘industrialized’ nations has more to do with the societies themselves, including such things as poverty, family makeup, etc., than it has to do with the availability of firearms.
One other note to ponder: There are around 4-5 million “assault” type firearms owned privately in the US, making up around 1.7% of all privately owned firearms. In order to suggest that these “assault” type firearms are more dangerous to the population in general, you would have to show that a significant percentage, above 1.7%, of all violent gun crime in the US is committed using these types of weapons.
The only source I was able to find detailing specific firearm usage in crime comes from an NRA website, which suggests that “assault” weapons were used in only around 1.4% in homicide investigations, and around one half percent of all crimes. Those numbers came from much earlier than the recent handful of years, but I’d assume that they are still similar. Although I could be wrong.
If it is the case that murders committed, involving a firearm, were only committed at a 1.7% clip compared to other firearms, then there really is no reason to suggest that “assault” type firearms are more dangerous to the general population, correct?
@Tom:
I do not blame the gun, an inantimate object, or gun manufacturers, for the murder of people, be it one or 27, any more than I blame the Chevy Volt, or GM, for the death of another American during a traffic fatality or as in so many cases, when a pedestrian is mowed down. Nor do I blame those who feel they have the right to own a vehicle for the deaths of many more Americans per year than are murdered by the use of a gun. But according to you, those who own knives, of any kind, should be demanding restrictions on knife ownership due to the number of stabbings that happened each year in this country. How far do you want to take your absurd argument? And no, guns don’t cause gun deaths. Just as knives, hammers, baseball bats and fists are used to kill people, I would like to know if you also want to put more restrictions on those inantimate objects. How do you address the “cost” of allowing all those potential weapons to remain easily accessible?
What kills people, Tom, is the free will of others to use a tool to enact such a henious crime. The Newtown shooter tried to buy a weapon before he killed his mother to steal hers.
Now, here is a question no one has asked you: do you support even more restrictive gun laws? What about more restrictive laws dealing with vehicle ownership or the ability to purchase a kitchen knife or pocket knife? How about baseball bats? Do you think everyone should be required to register their hands because people are murdered by someone using their fists?
And why don’t you give us some examples of how even more restrictive guns laws, both federal and state, have prevented any murder? Give us an example of how the Gun Free School Zone Act has prevented a school shooting.
@retire05: Retir05, there was a heyday of blaming the machine over the person.
I remember what was a local turning point.’
It was right after retired jockey Willie Shoemaker got falling-down drunk (again) and drove the Angeles Crest Highway (a curvy mountain road) in his Detroit built sports car.
He went over a cliff and ended up in a wheelchair for the rest of his life.
He won in court against the car maker.
Millions.
That was it.
End of the fairytale that it is a machine’s fault when a human errs.
Of course teleological Obama and his lib buddies live in a fantasy land where blaming the machine is easier than admitting humans cannot perfect themselves through enough government.
Blaming the machine is back.
@retire05:
Are you referring to the absurd argument you just invented? Please show me where I advocated banning knives. Of course you can’t. This is your typical and tiresome shtick all over again. People are attempting to have a discussion about a complex and difficult topic, and you’re like a hysterical person foaming at the mouth, making no sense. You may be someone who sees everything in the world in extremes, black and white, 100% this way or that way, but the vast majority of us understand that life is not so simple. If you can’t see the difference between a knife and an assault rifle, and why some might want to regulate the sale of one and not the other, I don’t know what to tell you. I assume you also see no difference between an assault rifle and a tomahawk missile, and believe civilians should be allowed to stockpile those as well. After all, a tomahawk missile is just another inanimate object. Wow, the world sure is simple when you dumb it down to idiot logic and sloganeering.
@Tom:
Did I say you supported banning knives? Talk about someone resorting to hyperbole. You’re the King of Hyperbole.
So………………when you have no answers, you resort to insults accusing me of “foaming at the mouth.” Not bright enough to sustain your own debate, Tom? Gee, color me surprised. NOT!
So let me pose my questions to you again and we’ll see if you are honest enough in your debate to answer them:
Do you support more restrictive gun laws?
Do you support more restrictive vehicle ownership laws?
Do you support more restrictive laws for the ownership of kitchen knives, pocket knives, or baseball bats?
Do you support the registration of hands which are often used as lethal weapons?
Do you have any examples of how more restrictive gun laws have prevented any crime, murder or otherwise, or how states that have enacted more restrictive gun laws have seen a reduction in gun related crimes?
Show us what you’ve got, Tom, because frankly, I think you debate from a position of emotion, not actual facts.
@Tom:
Dude, there are jackasses all over the country. In the coming months and years, the new Senator from South Carolina will be called an Uncle Tom, Porch Monkey, and House Ni**er, just like Colin Powell, Condi Rice, and every other black conservative. I think the best we can do is acknowledge there are idiots on both sides and nothing we do is going to make that go away. Free speech is part of our way of life. If saying stupid things were against the law, the Kardashians would all be in jail.
Back on the topic of gun control, I’ve been following some of the debates. I’m trying to find a reason for having high capacity magazines. I don’t favor an assault weapons ban; it’s basically a style issue. They shouldn’t be full auto capable or even burst capable; that’s a military function. But anything over a 10 round magazine for a rifle is too much. If you are hunting and you need more than 10 rounds, you’ve already exceeded your limit or you suck and should reevaluate you’re hunting skills. From a home security point of view, after 10 rounds you have either deterred the attack, have sufficient cover to reload, or you’re dead.
High capacity fire attacks are taught almost exclusively in the special forces community. I realize there are other factors involved in mass shootings, but this is something that could be done.