Alright, the actual number was 22. So not dozens, but tens.

A man with a bomb belt can massacre scores. A man with a rocket launcher can massacre hundreds. A man with a warhead can massacre thousands. A man with a nuke can massacre millions.

These are orders of magnitude, but the lowest common denominator of all of them is the intent to kill people. Do you truly think that all, or even many of the massacres, slaughters, genocides that have been perpetrated throughout history would not have happened in the absence of guns? Again, I agree that the easy accessibility of a firearm in the U.S. more easily enables such atrocities, but it still comes down to the basic premise that if someone wants to harm countless people, he will find a way to do it.

A man or woman with a gun can stop mayhem cold in its tracks. I wish the young military officer in Colorado had been allowed to carry his revolver into the theater. He died shielding his girl friend. There would have been maybe two dead instead of two dozen.

Certainly we need to screen gun purchasers. No psychopaths need apply. But we are only doing this at the level of big retailers, and that has to change.

I agree. Intent is not the key issue. Guns are more deadly than voodoo dolls even if the madman sticking pins into the voodoo dolls intends the same result. In China, several were injured but none were killed. That's not a mere nuance to be brushed aside as irrelevant.

If there had been a way to prevent the killer from acquiring the guns he used to massacre children, I think we all agree that would have been a good outcome. The ultimate question is whether there could have been such a way, or whether gun advocates are right when they tell us that gun control would not keep weapons out of the hands of determined criminals or psychopaths.

My own sense is that gun control could indeed make a difference. Not every criminal or psychopath patiently prepares in advance and therefore would somehow be able to acquire a gun. Some, I suspect, go off on a psychopathic episode and grab a weapon because it is handy. In Connecticut, the fellow took his mother's legal guns (and killed her as well). Had the mother not kept guns, perhaps his psychopathic break would have passed before he could have found an alternative. Widely and easily available guns just make things too easy when the mood for violence strikes.

Gun advocates argue that everyone would be safer if everyone carried a gun to defend himself. There is very little evidence for that. After all, the murder rate was pretty high in the Wild West where everyone carried. But one thing is certain. There are millions of people who feel anxious and less safe every day because of the prevalence of guns. This sense of anxiety is a factor as well. Is it fair to demand the right to make millions of people fearful and insecure? A lot of people find guns scary. I don't think it's a good thing to scare people.

A man with a bomb belt can massacre scores. A man with a rocket launcher can massacre hundreds. A man with a warhead can massacre thousands. A man with a nuke can massacre millions.

None of these things are legal, my friend. That is what the discussion is about.

Cops in front of every high school checking guns? Admiration of how the cop at the door "is VERY good with a gun" when we should be questioning why the number of gunshot deaths per year, per capita in the States is utterly out of synch with every other country?

Janice has it right, Tim, and so do association after association of mayors and police chiefs. We have to control the spread of guns, access to guns, and the type of guns available. Military assault rifles and high capacity magazines, and instant access to firearms without a background check at gun shows should be banned at once. Yes, it's complicated - and there are millions of them already out - and we need a massive education program - and we also need elected representatives who are not afraid of the NRA - but the alternate approach (encourage more citizens to carry guns) is sick, sick, sick, wrong, wrong, wrong. There is a massive difference between guns intended for hunting and marksmanship, and guns whose only function is to KILL other people - and between societies which do or do not make that distinction - and it's time that we stepped back and understood as a nation what kind of society we really want to be.

If you've room for another Hoosier on that Swedish horse, Janice, I'll join you. I've known too many kids who've been killed by guns.

Ed

Dear Tim,

I teach at an elementary school located on the border between the first and sixth most dangerous police beats in Oakland, a city with some harrowing police beats. With a couple week yet to go, the 2012 homicide count in Oakland, a city of 400,000 people, is 122. Appalling. Many, maybe most, of these deaths occur in or near the neighborhood I serve. Just this past Thursday, at 3:30 on a sunny afternoon, there was a deadly shooting three blocks away from my school -- an occurrence, I am sad to report, that did not faze me in the least. Last school year, we had six lockdowns on my site, and we have already had a couple this year. We have had stray bullets whistle onto the campus from nearby gunfire.

The victims of many of these murders carry guns themselves, albeit just as illegally as the perpetrators do. This balance of power does not reduce gun crime, but increases it and puts innocent bystanders -- kids on playgrounds, people sitting in their living rooms, teacher driving by, etc. -- at graver risk. If illegal gun possession were prosecuted the way drug possession is prosecuted, violence would certainly decrease. Instead, status offenders with bags of pot are thrown in overcrowded prisons, and people keep shooting each other. Maybe what is legal and what is illegal needs to be re-thought.

Right-to-carry laws would do nothing to improve the safety of the families I serve. They would not deter criminal gun use, and only make guns easier for potential killers to get, and ultimately, as I said, create more deadly crossfire. Right-to-carry would not have helped the kids in Connecticut either. The students would not have been carrying, and even if the teacher were (a terrible idea for many reasons that I am sure you can agree on), she likely would not have been able to brandish the weapon in time to save anyone. The fact is, her son used her legally obtained guns to commit this horrific act. Had she not been allowed to even legally own them, perhaps this would still have happened, but perhaps not.

David R.

Or, considering that he would have been shooting back at a man who was wearing full body armor in an unlit movie theater with dozens of patrons between them, there would have been 3 dozen shot instead of two.

There was a man with a gun present when Gabby Gifford was shot - at the last minute he decided not to use his weapon. He is glad he did not do so....he would have shot the wrong man.


http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/01/1...ed-az-shooter/

Really?

I'll show you my proof if you'll show me yours.



Raw Story (http://s.tt/1de0i)

I have previously agreed that every gun purchaser needs to be screened. But I have contributed to the NRA, I am expert in firearms, I teach firearms safety, and I am a strong supporter of concealed carry. When Governor Parry was asked if he were packing heat, he laughed, "That's why we call it concealed carry."