It's just so very sad

[HuskyBballFan]

It's a false argument. Chicago bans handguns and is the murder capital of the country. The UK bans everything and has seen gun violence skyrocket ever since they did. Switzerland has almost no gun control and has almost no gun crime.

If you are really looking for honest answers, look at a society that changed with Roe v Wade in its casual indifference to killing. Look at the devaluation of the family unit. There are many societal ills at work here. The ability to own an inert mechanical tool is the least of them. Gun ownership hasn't changed, yet we didn't see this in the 50s or before. So what has changed?

Gun control doesn't have to turn us into Switzerland in order to be considered a success. If it stops even one nutjob from doing something like this, then it's worth it.

 

[nomar]

I agree, largely.

Here's the thing. We've said this before. And then the debate never happens. Remember when we just had to wait a little while to start the debate after Aurora? That never happens.

We need to make it happen. We are the only first world country where this type of violent crime and mass shootings happens with any level of regularity. It's appalling, and we as a people are better than this.

It's perfectly fine for Huskyhut or anyone suffering personally today to ask for prayers. If they think some good will come out of that, that's fine.

But prayer and dialogue are not mutually exclusive. And of course one of those things might actually prevent a school shooting in the future.

I wholeheartedly agree with the notion that emotion should not dictate policy. (I'm anti-death penalty and when someone says"how would you feel if your wife was murdered," I respond by saying that I should be the last person in the scenario deciding the murderer's sentence.) But those calling for gun control aren't being emotional. It's not like this is the first time this has happened and we haven't considered this before. It happens all too frequently. Nobody's overreacting and saying anything that hasn't been said a million times before. Now IS the time to talk about this, while this is raw and everyone wants to hug their kid, knowing that it could have been him or her. There is no better time to address this. Let's try to do something.

 

[UConn990411]

If you are really looking for honest answers, look at a society that changed with Roe v Wade in its casual indifference to killing. Look at the devaluation of the family unit. There are many societal ills at work here. The ability to own an inert mechanical tool is the least of them. Gun ownership hasn't changed, yet we didn't see this in the 50s or before. So what has changed?

I never thought it would be possible to tie abortion into an elementary school shooting, but you proved me wrong. Well done.

I don't know you, but I know that I would hate you if I did.

 

[noeynox]

Gun control doesn't have to turn us into Switzerland in order to be considered a success. If it stops even one nutjob from doing something like this, then it's worth it.

This is nothing personal against you, but this empty rhetoric talk. If the nutjob doesn't go out and do something like this how do you know you could have or did stop him? There isn't some pre emptive unit that could stop this. I wish there was.

 

[upstater]

Today is a day for mourning. But it's also a day for anger. I'm shaking. I've blown off steam by letting people know my political feelings on days like these. I do it immediately. I did it within minutes on 9/11 (after getting off the phone with my brother at 8:20 am in the morning, he worked at #5 and had morning meetings atop #2). You can bet your ass we talked "politics."

 

[nomar]

This is nothing personal against you, but this empty rhetoric talk. If the nutjob doesn't go out and do something like this how do you know you could have or did stop him? There isn't some pre emptive unit that could stop this. I wish there was.

Do you honestly think that it would be just as easy to get a semi-automatic if they were illegal? Really? All it might take is delaying a guy a day to throw his plans off or make him reconsider.

Or we can just throw our hands in the air and say, "Hey, these things happen."

 

[upstater]

There are crazies all over the world.
There are also more intrusive gov'ts all over the world.
There are massacres, there are gun killings.

Now let's go look at the actual stats.

 

[HuskyHawk]

Gun control doesn't have to turn us into Switzerland in order to be considered a success. If it stops even one nutjob from doing something like this, then it's worth it.

Switzerland has no gun control. Connecticut has quite a lot. The solution to this sickness is much more complex.

 

[nomar]

Switzerland has no gun control. Connecticut has quite a lot. The solution to this sickness is much more complex.

Guess what else, genius? Abortion is legal in Switzerland.

Time to come up with another brilliant argument to explain our sickness Maybe Obama's imposition of Sharia law or communism?

 

[Huskymaniac]

Wow. Just. Wow. Worst post ever. Congrats. You earned it.

No, it wasn't. You are just incapable of understanding his logic. However, it is only one piece to this giant issue/puzzle. Unless someone wants to post a 500 page thesis on the subject in this thread, it is a waste of time to debate it on the internet. It is too inefficient to type out your thoughts, wait minutes or hours for a response, force the other person to wait minutes or hours for your response and so on. Waste of time. It is too complex. Anyone that thinks they can type out a post on a message board that completely explains the issue and presents a solution is a fool. How many people who scream for gun control even understand why the right to bear arms was put into the bill of rights? How many understand whether the need for that right is more or less than it was 50 years ago or 100 years ago or 200 years ago?

 

[noeynox]

Do you honestly think that it would be just as easy to get a semi-automatic if they were illegal? Really? All it might take is delaying a guy a day to throw his plans off or make him reconsider.

Or we can just throw our hands in the air and say, "Hey, these things happen."

Do you understand how long it takes to obtain a gun permit in connecticut? This guys supposedly had a glock and a sig sauer. Hand guns, which you need a permit for. A permit in Ct takes months to obtain.

Do we know if these guns were legally or illegally obtained?

 

[nomar]

No, it wasn't. You are just incapable of understanding his logic. However, it is one one piece to this giant issue/puzzle. Unless someone wants to post a 500 page thesis on the subject in this thread, it is a waste of time to debate it on the internet. It is too inefficient to type out your thoughts, wait minutes or hours for a response, force the other person to wait minutes or hours for your response and so on. Waste of time. It is too complex. Anyone that thinks they can type out a post on a message board that completely explains the issue and presents a solution is a fool. How many people who scream for gun control even understand why the right to bear arms was put into the bill of rights? How many understand whether the need for that right is more or less than it was 50 years ago or 100 years ago or 200 years ago?

If I had any doubt as to the accuracy of my post, your support for him has erased it. I'm incapable of understanding his logic, haha. You're a funny dude. Dumb and crazy, but funny.

 

[ctchamps]

I am a resident of Newtown, the Sandy Hook area, less than a mile from the elementary school. I know, or should say knew, the principal who is one of the victims.

We ask for your prayers, please.

Prayers for all the families who were victims.

 

[nomar]

Do you understand how long it takes to obtain a gun permit in connecticut? This guys supposedly had a glock and a sig sauer. Hand guns, which you need a permit for. A permit in Ct takes months to obtain.

Do we know if these guns were legally or illegally obtained?

I'm trying to figure out how that's responsive to my point.

We don't know anything about this shooting yet.

 

[noeynox]

Do you honestly think that it would be just as easy to get a semi-automatic if they were illegal? Really? All it might take is delaying a guy a day to throw his plans off or make him reconsider.

Or we can just throw our hands in the air and say, "Hey, these things happen."

You want to make semi-automatics illegal? Why not revolvers also? For the record, I'm not a pro gun type. I just don't grasp the opposing argument.

 

[Huskymaniac]

If I had any doubt as to the accuracy of my post, your support for him has erased it. I'm incapable of understanding his logic, haha. You're a funny dude. Dumb and crazy, but funny.

Yeah, I must be. Because, if I am actually smart and sane that would make you........well, you can't handle the truth.

 

[nomar]

You want to make semi-automatics illegal? Why not revolvers also? For the record, I'm not a pro gun type. I just don't grasp the opposing argument.

I'm in favor of reading the Second Amendment according to a strict interpretation. Everyone should have the right to carry a musket.

Seriously, though, I believe that there is absolutely no need for anyone outside the armed forces or SWAT teams to have high-powered weapons. What is the justification for it? That's the opposing argument that I don't grasp. Perhaps you can explain it to me.

 

[noeynox]

Nomar, if you don't have a permit, you cannot walk in to a gun store in CT and buy a gun. Getting permit in CT is quite an involved process including criminal back ground check which is cross referrenced with the FBI who get a copy of your prints an picture.

I don't have the answer. I agree that we need more.

 

[Kitaman]

What the odds on these guys catching a break after today? Linky

 

[cohenzone]

How do you even process what happened in Newtown?

Eighteen families put a little kid on a school bus this morning and will never see that child again. I imagine my daughter's third-grade classroom and can't imagine how the parents of those children will ever have a peaceful moment.

I've never been more discouraged about what we are and where we are. Twenty-seven people have been taken from their families two weeks before Christmas.

Now, we'll go through the usual charade of political types 'investigating' why some state agency didn't step in to protect us from this deranged soul, wondering how he was allowed to buy a gun, wondering why the school didn't do more....and then we'll move on and someone else will shoot their way through more families down the road.

It's enough - something has to change. I no longer care that a bunch of folks 250 years ago thought that they might have needed guns...I suspect they'd change their minds if they'd ever thought of what we'd start doing with those guns.

My son was a post doc at VTech on the day of those shootings and his office was literally 30 yards from the dorm where the first shootings took place. We were horrified as he was in Ilockdown. He learned later that day that a grad student in his dept. was a student at Columbine the day of that shooting. Today's shootings and those and the other mass shootings are hard to grasp, not forgetting the scores of individual shootings daily in this country.

I have no illusions about the Constitution being rewritten anytime soon. But changing laws to both tighten gun ownership laws, restricting types of legal weapons, and requiring periodic psychological testing of registered owners would be some step in the right direction. And let the people who make the faux claim that only the bad guys will have guns believe in that fairy tale as much as they believe that an armed intruder will let them retrieve a loaded weapon so they can shoot it out. Maybe our politicians will start to develop some balls toward the NRA. As we know, guns don't shoot people, only people who have guns do.

 

[noeynox]

A pistol/handgun is a semi automatic weapon. Perhaps you're associating a semi automatic with a high powered assault rifle. This nutjob supposedly used two hand guns a glock and a sig sauer. Automatic weapons are illegal in this country. They just this idiot's mom was teacher there and he killed her also. Think about that, this was a deranged lunatic. The strictest gun control will not stop someone like that. But we do need more.

 

[HuskyHawk]

Guess what else, genius? Abortion is legal in Switzerland.

Time to come up with another brilliant argument to explain our sickness Maybe Obama's imposition of Sharia law or communism?

What's your explanation since there are more guns per capita there than here? I listed it as an example of a societal change and said there are several factors. TV has also changed. Movies have changed. Our views on family have changed. Stop being so reactionary and think outside the box prescribed for you. There is something going on here and it isn't increased access to guns, since access to guns has decreased. I don't know what the answer is, but it isn't lack of gun control.

 

[HuskyHawk]

A pistol/handgun is a semi automatic weapon. Perhaps you're associating a semi automatic with a high powered assault rifle. This nutjob supposedly used two hand guns a glock and a sig sauer. Automatic weapons are illegal in this country. They just this idiot's mom was teacher there and he killed her also. Think about that, this was a deranged lunatic. The strictest gun control will not stop someone like that. But we do need more.

I see reports that he had a .223 caliber rifle. Which could be anything from an AR15 to a bolt action hunting rifle. Both of which have the same power.

 

[upstater]

NEWSFLASH TO SOME OF YOU: Connecticut is not a country.

Your comparison is about as relevant as comparing China to Ticino.

 

[Yonick]

This shooter, Ryan Lanza killed his father, this morning, in Hoboken NJ. He then drove up to Newtown killed his mother, a kindergarten teacher, and most of the kids in his mothers class.

Horrible....