No, it's not true that gun-right states have lower rates of gun violence than those with more gun-control legislation. Here's a very informative website I suggest everyone check out:
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/...n-deaths/69354
Janice, you are going to need a much bigger horse, with a very sturdy saddle, as I am joining you.
Thanks to those of you who have posted, not passionate opinions, but numbers to support rational arguments. Anybody who really believes that a knife is the equivalent of an automatic or semi-automatic weapon must be dreaming. As for the intent of an act of violence being what "really matters," ask the bereaved parents in Newton if they agree.
And no, it's not "evil" that brings about tragedies like this one or the long, long string of others before it. It's ideology, which places the perceived right to be armed, as heavily and quickly as desired, and in every environment, ahead of the right of the general population to be protected from the temporarily deranged, the psychopath, and the simply criminal.
Of course it's obvious--except to those who don't want to see it--that we are dangerously gun-happy in this country, and that too many among us care more about the second amendment than any other. I think it's obscene that in some parts of this country, it takes less time to buy a gun and all the ammunition you want that it does to vote in, say, Florida. There seems to be much more fear of the voter who gets to vote without a rigorous examination first that of the casual stranger who gets to arm himself like a soldier at the battlefront. Anybody who doesn't see the profit motive as a huge part of that lop-sided difference is too naive for words.
Fortunately Alfred, my husband, who is known to some of you as a world War II veteran and a rifle-bearing infantryman, has come up with the perfect solution. He says the second amendment must not be violated, and everyone who wants to arm himself should be permitted to do so, provided that the weapon he purchases is a flintlock from the Revolutionary War era, which is the weapon the Founding Fathers had in mind. That should satisfy everyone, right?
Quincy, you are even sillier than I remember.