WE: After school shooting in Connecticut, Piers Morgan blasts America’s ‘gun madness’

[Jumbo]

It's the proliferation of weapons and the violent culture that is much more important.

Sounds oddly familiar. But, despite seeing up close all forms of domestic and child abuse, sexual and other assaults, and every other form of violence so common in our society (part of it being a superior model for the rest of the world I presume), not to mention all just obvious "lighter" social examples at all levels and in all media and just ****ing all over the place , I think you're imaging things.

Anyway, I can handle it.

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

I wonder what the opinion of those that have faced guns in schools would be?

Are you going to train my 60 year old mother on how to handle a Glock? Elemebtary school staffs are overwhelmingly female, I might add. This does not strike me as a population that is going to want to pack heat to go work.

And are you willing to see an increase in your property taxes for the kind of security that would be necessary here?

[Jumbo]

Are you going to train my 60 year old mother on how to handle a Glock?

I'm not the best guy with a handgun that I know, but I would go against most 60 year old women (untrained) that I've seen.

[Corcaigh]

This may apply to #1 on your list, but we need to make the background check an across-the-board background check. No loopholes.

Slow down with your PC bull****. What if it was a white female wanting to buy a gun to take care of her brown Muslim ex-boyfriend?

[Mad Mike]

But can we have a conversation about reasonable restrictions? About certain types of guns? Limiting magazine sizes? Waiting periods and background checks? Certification and training? Gun control isn't a simple yes/no question.

I dont have a problem with reasonable restrictions and regulations. I would not have a problem with everyone purchasing a gun being made to take a class and pass a test on gun safety and the law. As a first time gun owner I took the same course required for concealed carry just because I didn't feel comfortable owning a gun without some training. I don't have a problem requiring guns be locked up or for more thorough background checks. But magazine capacity does nothing when clips can be swapped out in 2 seconds. AR's and other so called "assault weapons" are another issue. In reality they are simply advanced, modern, semi-auto rifles and I have no problem with law abiding citizens owning one, but there is no denying their appeal to those who would do great harm. Take them out of Walmart and make the requirements for ownership a little stricter.

But if you really want to stop mass murders, give us universal health care where no one who needs help physically, mentally, or emotionally is denied or ignored.

[Redskins Diehard]

I don't know, but it would seem to be an idea to explore.
Doctor / patient privilege would seem to be in question there, but I think maybe an exception for the mental health eval for gun ownership could have a disclosure clause.

~Bang

I think the idea of "keeping guns out of the hands of people with mental illness" may be a good idea. I just see actually developing a system that achieves that as filled with all kind of issues. Do I have to go see a mental health professional EVERY time I want to purchase a firearm? Would I be discouraged from seeing a mental health professional if I knew that would limit my firearm purchasing opportunities down the road? A big challenge the military has faced is convincing troops of all ranks that it would not "hurt their career" to see a mental health specialist. Do we send the police over to folks that have been deemed "unstable" to confiscate their firearms? Like I said...I agree with the sentiment. And also agree that we shouldn't exclude a solution because it doesn't prevent all future occurrences. Just not sure how we execute this one.

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

Maybe if there was a armed,trained adult there.....

You know what?

The more I read this stupid logic, the more angry I get.

I'm 38 years old. I have never been in a fist-fight. It shouldn't be up to me to protect me or my kids from an armed lunatic covered in body armor.

This was a freaking suburban elementary school in Connecticut. How many of those teachers had ever seen a firearm in their lives, let alone touched one, let alone fired one, let alone be capable of engaging in a damn shootout with a well-armed man in - again - body armor. In my daughters' school, the second grade teacher is in a wheelchair...the third grade teacher is a nun. How are they going to do in a shootout?

This is such a bloody mis-direction to avoid talking about the fact that as a nation we are awash in guns and we have a class of mentally ill people with easy access to said guns. Conservatives don't want to limit the guns or treat the mentally ill. So, they get cute and say arm the kindergartern teacher.

It's such nonsense.

---------- Post added December-18th-2012 at 07:49 PM ----------

Do I have to go see a mental health professional EVERY time I want to purchase a firearm?

Why not? How many times do you plan on buying guns in your life?

Would I be discouraged from seeing a mental health professional if I knew that would limit my firearm purchasing opportunities down the road?

Well, in a perfect world, you wouldn't be able to buy the gun without the visit so you might as well see the shrink.

And also agree that we shouldn't exclude a solution because it doesn't prevent all future occurrences. Just not sure how we execute this one.

You put the onus on the gun owner, you can buy x number of guns in x number of years if you pass the criminal background check and the mental health exam.

Gun rights are ingrained in our Constitution. So is voting. Ask the gun rights nuts here if they think voting should be more restrictive? I have a feeling that you won't see consistency.

[B&G]

I mentioned this before, but it got no response. For the conservatives who would like the discussion to focus less on gun control and more on mental health - what is the conservative small government solution to providing more mental heath services? I just don't see them or understand how conservatives can in good faith be calling for improvements while attempting to slash government social programs at every turn.

Are conservatives willing to come to the table and really discuss increasing government spending and government programs (state/national) to address the issue of mental health access?

Along with many others in this thread, you wrongly equate conservatives with gun proponents. Many liberals are as strident in their support of the 2nd amendment as the politically conservative folks you mention. And many conservatives would like to see guns done away with completely. No labels, please.

Now let me answer your question as a conservative. Of course I would be willing to provide funding for mental health services which are today woefully unfunded, provided we as a nation can afford to do so. I would even go so far to say that I would fund mental health services at a higher priority than many, many other expenditures. I would, however, not spend a dime beyond what we take in via revenue. So, hard decisions would have to be made as to what is essential and what is not. And, I would ruthlessly cut all the pork out of government to start reducing the country's deficit. In my view, liberals who want to see across the board increases in government spending regardless of the nation's ability to pay for them, are moving this country toward disaster.

[Jumbo]

How about a simple, low-impact, rational proposal to bridge these immense gulfs....maybe "No white people can have guns."

[Redskins Diehard]

Why not? How many times do you plan on buying guns in your life?

Well, in a perfect world, you wouldn't be able to buy the gun without the visit so you might as well see the shrink.

You put the onus on the gun owner, you can buy x number of guns in x number of years if you pass the criminal background check and the mental health exam.

Gun rights are ingrained in our Constitution. So is voting. Ask the gun rights nuts here if they think voting should be more restrictive? I have a feeling that you won't see consistency.

Well you have it all figured out....congrats. And I have a feeling that you will see inconsistency in the other direction also. So there we have it...we've discovered that people believe in the things they believe in and not the things they don't.

[Hubbs]

Japan is the ideal. They've got the most restrictive gun laws in the world and have all but eradicated gun deaths as a result. They forcibly disarmed their population when they enacted their new constitution and it worked. They have the lowest or second lowest murder rate in the world despite having one of the greatest population densities.

The laws they implemented were wholly effective and comprehensive. They will never be passed here. Plain and simple, Americans are too selfish and enjoy our toys too much to ever accept them and our gun lobbies are too powerful to allow radical changes.

But the rest of the developed world has murder rates far lower than ours too, and the countries with the most restrictive gun laws have the least armed populations and have the lowest murder rates.

The truth: take away a population's guns and you make it much harder for them to kill other people. People don't kill each other nearly as much when it's not so easy to do. It's completely intuitive. A child could understand that reasoning.

So can we all agree to leave the sophist/factually bankrupt arguments of "the evil people will just start picking us off like flies" out of the debate? Just say what your real motivation is: "I would rather keep things the way they already are. I would rather keep my guns."

Ever looked up Switzerland's murder rate?

[Jumbo]

Well you have it all figured out....congrats. And I have a feeling that you will see inconsistency in the other direction also. So there we have it...we've discovered that people believe in the things they believe in and not the things they don't.

Hey, I still believe in rule 11 and I want you to, also.

[panel]

First you are comparing apples and oranges. All stolen property? Not necessarily. Stolen Weapons? potentially.
Secondly, the primary purpose of a car is to get from point A to point B. It is not to discharge a projectile at such a rapid rate of speed in an attack or counter-attack that it is virtually indefensible against...

When I was in High School, there was a perceived problem with drugs. Our school could not do anything to stop drug dealers. So they enacted a 0 tolerance policy. The 0 tolerance policy classified any pill as a drug, so when one student gave another an allergy pill, they were suspended for "Dealing Drugs". At the next PTA meeting the school boasted that their 0 tolerance program was working, because they were catching more of the student violating drug policy.

Point is, they could not do anything to stop the real problem, so they punished others as a way to make it seem like they were doing something. I see this to be very similar.

Someones house gets broken into and all her possessions are stolen, in addition to needing to start over, the burglar sells her gun to a drug dealer that uses the gun to kill another drug dealer. The drug dealer killers rarely get caught, but guess what lady, we were able to find out who owned the gun that was left one the scene, we can't catch the killers, but we can catch you, you are now going to be held responsible after we give ourselves a pat on the back. Then we are going to tell the victim's family that we apprehended one of the parties responsible for your relative's death.

Whether it is a car or a gun that is stolen, the injustice is the same. Guns are used for more than just attack or counter-attack. The hunters, sportsmen, and citizens in the US that own them shoot over 10 billion rounds a year, and most of those shots were not for attack or counter-attack.

[DaGoonie55]

Well, what I thought the consitution said doesn't matter. Just found this:

http://blogs.suntimes.com/politics/2...tml#trackbacks

"We are disinclined to engage in another round of historical analysis to determine whether eighteenth-century America understood the Second Amendment to include a right to bear guns outside the home," Judge Richard Posner wrote in the court's majority opinion.. . . ."The Supreme Court has decided that the amendment confers a right to bear arms for self-defense, which is as important outside the home as inside. The theoretical and empirical evidence (which overall is inconclusive) is consistent with concluding that a right to carry firearms in public may promote self-defense," he continued.

The complete banning of firearms is probably not going to happen if they just issued this on the 11th of December. Now to the task at hand. Regulation as to what you can have and how many in what time frame and Certifications of eligibility. Discuss.

[Thiebear]

I mentioned this before, but it got no response. For the conservatives who would like the discussion to focus less on gun control and more on mental health - what is the conservative small government solution to providing more mental heath services? I just don't see them or understand how conservatives can in good faith be calling for improvements while attempting to slash government social programs at every turn.

Are conservatives willing to come to the table and really discuss increasing government spending and government programs (state/national) to address the issue of mental health access?

Obamacare kicks in here shortly and is only going to expand to eventually a single payer system for trillions, so at a minimum it better be able to handle basic mental health care?
Use your (free)Obamaphone to setup a (free)Obamascan to qualify to get a smaller 2 bullet no clip palmprint reading (free)Obamagun?

I'm all in: where do we sign up?