Honestly you have just gone full blown stupid

And then you leaned toward the deke of the straw man. I didn't apply nor even imply the "if you can't stop all you can't stop any" notion. It was stupid of you to put words or intentions in my statement that were not remotely in it. That is not an argument. That is not a reasonable discussion. And I was wrong, that is not even a leaning toward a deke. It is a deke.

Jim, you seem to lean on the 75% statistic a lot but when is the last time a black person was involved in a mass shooting? If anything is common in these instances it is they are all white for the most part. I love guns,especially the type used in these shootings but something is wrong. And it seems to be getting worse. We have lost our respect for life when these crimes are committed without relevant targets.
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My condolences to the families that lost loved ones...I hate politics and stay as far away from it as I can...everyone need to meet and "dance in the middle of the floor" if anything is to be done.. great line guy's!... but I cant help but notice one thing..

Most of these extremely sick individuals don't walk into the police station or an army barracks ( fort hood the exception) and pull this crap.. I wonder why.

Eliminating something that is considered by some to be a contributing "part" of a larger complex problem because it is easy to access is not a solution if eliminating that something imposes on the rights of everyone else.

And if the problem exists due to specific causes that don't depend on all of the reputed "parts" of the problem, not only would it be unjust to eliminate all those peripheral parts, it would not solve the specific problem.

Since the 1960's our American society and culture has become less certain and more fragmented. There has been a huge loss of confidence in the values that predominated before the mid 20th century. That confidence had been degraded by smaller degrees before that, but the slow onslaught of academic relativism slipped into hyperdrive in the 1960's. It was modeled by Post Modern Cultural Marxism which denies any certainty and sees only power as the end and aim of existence, and which fuels the romance of class warfare and the disintegration of the founding American structure.

New heroes were made of younger identity splinter groups such as the Black Panthers, Weather Underground, Symbionese Liberation Army, etc.. Anti-war pacifists railed against American military might and exposed us as imperialists and rapists of the third world. America was painted as a racist, sexual and religious oppressive force in the world. College campuses became the high court of social justice and the battlefield against American oppression. And that has progressed since then into the right to censor any thought or speech that is counter to their intellectual rules of global order. Even to the point of justifying physical attacks on those who don't agree with them.

Notions of gender, freedom of speech or religion, rights to property, individualism in general, must all to be destroyed. Individual identity is subservient to group identity, or is irrelevant altogether. We are reduced to the struggle to gain power. That struggle is armed through force and violence. Notions of "reasonable discussions" are actually occasions to eliminate opposing ideas. Language has been inverted to Orwellian opposites. Justice is force. Government is power. Equality is mandated sameness. Freedom is granted and prescribed limitation. Reason is consensus or state edict. Life is meaningless and qualified only by social construct.

What once was considered a power and source of good, America, is now an antiquated notion of white supremacy and a retrograde imposition on the progress of world justice. It is the center of capitalist domination of the world's masses, a barrier to the equality of the world's people. And it must be made to feel guilty of its past and present transgressions. And so must Europe and all white societies. Justice cries for all the oppressed non-whites to have their equal share of "white privilege." And if the means to that end requires violence--so be it.

The present Progressive model of there being no power greater than the state, facilitated by state force and coercion, is a godless model that inspires renegades to take all power to themselves. If a renegade seeks notoriety, he must do so within the norms that will recognize his power as something to be admired. In a world that sees power as the ultimate end to existence, what greater admiration can there be than gaining power over the lives of others.

A couple of things to think about and they are just statistics
School shootings are a small portion of the shootings in the US
The US has by far the highest level of gun violence in the developed world
Most shootings are of the same race, you shoot who you know
6 americans have died per year from islamic terrorists
Over 13,000 have died per year from gun violence

I'm sure you have seen this before
 

1967 – Jayne Mansfield is killed when her car runs under the rear end of a tractor trailer. Since then, all trailers have a DOT bar at the rear to keep cars from going under them.
1982 – Seven people die when Tylenol packaging was tampered with. Since then, it takes a PhD, channel locks, and a sharp object to get into a bottle of pills.
2001 – One person attempts to blow up a plane with a shoe bomb. Since then, all air travelers have to take off their shoes for scanning before being allowed to board.
Since 1968 – 1,516, 863 people die from guns on American soil. Since then, the problem apparently can’t be solved except with thoughts and prayers. AND JU$T WHY DO YOU THINK THI$ I$???

That comment and reading others after every shooting like this remind of the Onion headline a few months ago which was something like

"Mass shootings can't be stopped says the only nation to have mass shootings"

C'mon man . . . you keep trotting out small selective lists of statistics out of the millions of stats as if that was supposed to give us a hint on the easy solution to something that doesn't even meaningfully relate to other things which are not difficult to fix. making cars safer, commercial flying, making pill bottles tamper proof don't necessarily correlate to murder. What's the easy solution to stop some crazy person from driving his truck into a crowd of people? How do you stop an airplane pilot from deliberately crashing his plane? How do you stop someone from overdosing on pills?

"AND JU$T WHY DO YOU THINK THI$ I$???[/"

Because like it or not, nowhere in the constitution does it say pill bottles must be easy to open, nor does it say you cannot be asked to take your shoes off at the airport. But it does say something about the right to keep and bear arms not being infringed. We don't get to ignore the parts of the constitution we don't happen to like at the moment. If we want to change the constitution, there is a mechanism to do that. But we can't pretend that it doesn't say what it says.

The other challenge, is that regardless of what we do with gun control, there are tens of millions of guns out there, and we cannot confiscate the ones that are out there.

Politically, we are paralyzed because neither side seems willing to budge from a rigid ideological stance.

Easy solutions to your stats:

Be nice to those you know, and keep Islamic terrorists out of the country.

Historically when a small group insists on a right and gun owners are increasingly becoming a smaller and smaller group they end up losing it.
Don't think that a constitutional amendment is impossible.
I would rather give up some of my guns than all and when only 30% of the households own guns and only 10% of those give a s--t you can easy end up in a situation like the UK. Not having semi-automatics would punish my shoulder in duck season but not that bad. Lots of people go hunting in Canada.

No wonder we're doomed.The amount of misinformation and plain ignorance here is incredible.

The right is misinformed and the left is just plain ignorant.

I don't know why they are or are not used in mass shootings but it is mechanically and functionally just about the same gun. Shoots the same round at the same speed with the same single shot per trigger.

It is not an assault weapon, BTW. The AR destination stands for "Armalite"



Yes - they are sick kid "lost boys" with mental health issues, sometimes but not always from troubled homes.

Even several of the terrorist incidents (Hood, Pulse) had people that exhibited some question to mental stability.

In the end, we need to do something. Too many kids die every day on the streets, too many people commit suicide, and schools should be safe. The problem is most often and intersection between mental illness and access to something to kill people with, either bomb, firearm, or a vehicle. Maybe we should focus on the underlying problems: Mental Illness, and political and religious motivations.

To treat law abiding people as the enemy is not the solution. But it is great for votes.

You would give up some? There is your problem right there, Once they take those some, now there are fewer they will have to come for later. They are picking away bit by bit right under your noses under the guise of safety. Check out how things are in Australia, criminals get guns mailed to them in the mail and law abiding citizens cannot defend themselves because they gave up their guns. Are you going to bring a knife to a gunfight? or become a victim? or a slave to your tyrannical government?

Freedom comes at a cost

the choice of freedom was made in this country 250 years ago

What is the murder rate in Australia compared to the US?
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you mean to say some people are turned on by the POWER the gun has. I doubt it is actually the gun itself.

You didn’t read what I wrote you need to pick your battles, or the 90% of Americans who don’t agree with you can take the right from you and I by amendment as it was given to us 227 years ago
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Blacks don’t generally launch these mass killings. But I’d like to take on all gun violence, and more people are killed in garden variety gun violence than mass shootings. Street crime and mass shootings are two very different things. The rate of fatherlessness is a catastrophe for the black community.

I agree with you about lost respect. The guns play a role, but the root cause is a lack of character among our population. Lots of reasons, fatherlessness, violence on tv, the internet, secularism, liberalism.

And I agree it’s getting worse. I agree with everything you said. I don’t like it, but every word was accurate. But it’s depressing
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It is sad Jim,just terrible. I would hesitate to refer to any murder as garden variety though. And certainly what goes on in Chicago is more palatable than the mass murder epidemic we are experiencing as of late. But it is still an atmosphere of disrespect. I love guns but refuse to hang this on the constitution like others and dismiss these instances of bloodshed as legal or acceptable because of our outdated measures of good intention. There has to be a middle ground where we can still maintain civility and respect, but protect the innocent victims whose numbers keep growing but are squelched out by our patriotic defenders of freedom. Freedom to get weapons regardless of mental state. Freedom to get weapons just to go kill innocent bystanders. Trust me, if their children were victims they would sing a different tune. This is a terrible scene that plays out with more regularity and it is heartbreaking for our society. I would caution you to hang the cause of these incidents on liberalism,it seems too shallow and insecure in a climate like we are experiencing as a nation. Rise above this type of accusation and digg deep for solutions.
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"It is sad"

That's exactly what it is.

"I would hesitate to refer to any murder as garden variety though.'

I hear you, but you know what I meant...regular street crime, which while it doesn't make the headlines of mass shootings, claims way more lives.

"I love guns but refuse to hang this on the constitution like others"

There are no easy solutions. Just a good time to hug my kids and take them to see the Harlem Globetrotters tomorrow. Have a good long weekend.

I get what you are saying but I am not handing over anything period

To equate any attempt to alter gun laws with the intent to save lives as an attempt at taking away all gun rights is not the solution. But it is great for votes.

Also, in almost every recent mass murderer, the person was a law abiding person up until the guy gunned down kids, teachers, concert goes, club dancers, etc. There are certainly ridiculous components of gun laws, but gun laws are not inherently ridiculous.

I like guns. I tagged along on hunting trips from as young as 5 or 6 and love to shoot. I am now convinced the founders "messed' up.

Supreme Court decision in US v. Miller 1939 2nd amendment intent and implication was for weapons related to a "well regulated militia" only. Based on everything I have read about the lead up to the second I am convinced that is what the founders intendedband as such is antiquated. The concern of the founders was the shift of security from State militias to federal forces. Leads to the question, in modern times, do well regulated state militias that provide protection against the federal army exist and should the intent to protect them dictate modern gun policy?
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The answer is to make it more difficult to get firearms. Stop making stupid rules that do nothing,10 rounds,bumpstock....Just make the process to acquire the firearm more selective. Right now in MA it takes about 20 minutes to buy a firearm,this is in a state considered to have strict gun laws. It must be time to pay more attention. If I had to wait a day,week,or month in order to make an impulse or nutjob think twice about his urge to kill it would be worth it.
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I disagree. The founding fathers knew what they were doing. But they did put in a mechanism to repeal the 2A. Get 34 states to repeal it in a Constitutional Convention. But then you will see the breakup of the USA.

What we need? Better background checks. And a system of restraining order for those suffering from mental health issues.


You have to have a FID car in Mass first, THEN you get to some of the most restrictive gun rules in the nation.

You are correct John in what we need, though I don't think it is limited to those two things. The NRA funded politicians fight those two things tooth and nail and propagandize that they are the first step to the government taking all guns. I also suggest reading as much as you can about the lead up to the second amendment. No doubt in my mind that 200 years and pervasive political propaganda has distorted the intent of the founders.
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John, that is not exactly jumping through hoops, guns can be dangerous you know. Believe it or not, the state of Mass actually makes you take drivers education classes and then you have to pass a written exam and then a road test to get a license. And that is just to drive a car! Imagine if there were similar requirements to get a little firearm. I know, crazy talk. It should be as easy as getting milk and eggs. Certainly not as difficult as buying cigarettes.
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Great post.

Want to reduce mass killings?

Have our schools do a better job of identifying the small number of children who are lonely, isolated, or bullied. Get these kids some love and some help. I am convinced that in many cases, being alone/bullied in school, is the breeding ground for the mass shooters.

Let's encourage a return to traditional family values, encourage more families to have a parent at home to keep an eye on things. Instead of running around 24 hours a day for kids activities, take time to have supper together and talk to your kids, and listen. Turn the devices off.

Curb the violence we bombard our kids with on TV and in video games

get to church once in awhile, and listen to what's being said.

Encourage more families to have 2 parents.

Be more proactive about locking up the violent mentally ill.

Have a rational conversation about bump stocks and high capacity magazines.

If we do all these things, mass killings will decrease. If we don't do these things, they won't decrease.

A single incident doesn't make a very good case. And someone who's trained to use a weapon?

Nobody has said people kill simply because of looks. But to argue there isn't a cult like following around deadly weapons that has an influence is crazy.

This is just a bunch of circling nonsense. It's a systems problem, you can't cherry pick single elements in an effort to discredit the entire thing.


Yea, let's go back to a time when women knew their place, gays stayed in the closet, the poor starved and minorities knew better than to mingle with the white folk.

Fess up. Is detbuch really Jeff Sessions?

Funny, most real progressives I know, and I don't know a lot of them believe in a democracy and liberty.

That certainly is part of the solution. Unfortunately *any* measures to restrict *any* part of the process is viewed as an instant ride down the slippery slope to a dystopian militarized state devoid of liberty.

We're better than that.

Why would we have a federal registry for automatic weapons and not for some semi-auto which have proven in Vegas to be able to hit over 500 people in the span of a few minutes? Why can someone with the extreme track record of illness and violence be able to just walk in and purchase an assault weapon in a few minutes?

Why don't other Western countries have the same issues we do?