You can blame gun owners or blame the mentally ill...

[dkf]

The thing is you can realistically stop neither.

Do background checks really prevent these things? I'm not sure.

Like taxes this is the price we pay for living in a free society.

So no we don't lock up people with mental illnesses unless they are an imminent danger to themselves or others. Nor do we prevent the "law abiding citizen" from getting a gun.

[Warren Stupidity]

1. Why am I not fucking surprised by this post at all?

[kestrel91316]

56. Indeed. This person takes the RW side of arguments

100% of the time. Not sure why he/she hasn't been delivered a pizza yet.

[white_wolf]

75. In all fairness I think I saw her/him support single-payer at one point.

I was utterly shocked.

[kestrel91316]

96. That was probably deliberate prevarication.

No way that poster supports ANYTHING liberal or Democratic.

[nadinbrzezinski]

58. For the reason I am

[Skittles]

79. because they are coming out of the fucking woodwork

[RetroLounge]

107. Another right-wing talking point = another dkf post.

never fails.

RL

[morningfog]

2. Well, it's just part of living, eh? No sense in trying to change it.

Pathetic.

[dkf]

7. CT has strict gun laws. What more do you want?

[sharp_stick]

10. They aren't that strict here

if you want strict gun laws you need to look to places like England or even Canada.

[cleanhippie]

20. Ahh, so by strict, you mean prohibit?

Am I reading you right?

[morningfog]

32. That is a very long term goal.

It will take years, decades to ever get there. But, little by little we can do it. It must start with very strict limitations on who can have a gun, how many guns can be manufactured, the types of guns permitted, the amount of ammo allowed and manufactured.

Then, we need to get the gun nuts over themselves and their paranoia. This will take the most work, as they are some of the more irrational people in the country. Fueled by fear and hate. But, they will come around, or die out. Like the homophobes and the racists.

[cleanhippie]

36. Do you realize that when you denigrate legal gun owners as "gun nuts"...

you are talking about a LARGE portion of the Democratic Party and other Liberals that are on your side?


How can we have a civil, sane, and rational conversation when this is happening?

[morningfog]

53. No, you are trying to confuse the point by suggesting

when I say gun nuts I mean "all legal gun owners." I don't. I mean gun nuts. The ones who fight any and all gun control legislation because of their paranoia and weapon fetish.

[FreakinDJ]

84. Then only the Wealthy and Blackwater Security will have guns

Not exactly the answer either

and exactly what the Founding Fathers were trying to prevent

[CTyankee]

101. The FF were then, this is now.

We need to look to other, newer constitutional democracies and see how they handle guns in their constitutions and then model ours after getting ideas from theirs. I would imagine those countries have experienced considerable gun violence more recently than the 18th century and would have better ideas for us than the founders did.

We have an incredibly unworkable and outdated constitution in many ways. The second amendment (and its interpretation) is the most egregious.

[rrneck]

111. An interesting point.

The twentieth century was arguably the most barbaric in human history. In the course of that struggle the United States was arguably the winner. With guns. That's a pretty iimportant cultural precedent to overcome.

[CTyankee]

112. Largely regulated guns and planes and bombs and tanks.

Military hegemony. I don't see "cultural" as much if at all.

[rrneck]

114. Guns have tremendous symbolic value in this country.

We've done little more than fight for most of our history. The small arms used in the first and second world wars are still around today:

M-1 Garand Semi automatic rifle.
M1911 .45ACP Semi automatic pistol.

And almost all of those guns still work.

If you enjoy high culture know that we paid for it with the blood of millions of innocents who died because of all those uncultured country boys went over there and stole the resources to get it. We owe our wealth to our empire. We owe our empire to those guns.

Art works because people naturally anthropomorphize things. We spontaneously give content to everything around us - including guns. When you send millions of people to kill with them don't be surprised if they accrue cultural importance.

[CTyankee]

115. We didn't steal art "over there." Other empires did. Certainly Napoleon and of course

Hitler tried. If anything, we fought on the side of preserving the art where it was (Monument Men in WW2). Big industrialists in the second half of the 19th century bought LOTS of it. Nothing was stolen. We pride ourselves in the fact that our museums do not contain looted art and artifacts, the way the British Museum has artifacts that were looted (Elgin Marbles).

When I think of our cultural hegemony I think of the American film, which probably had the most celebrated influence around the entire world.

[rrneck]

116. You missed the point.

I'm not talking about stealing works of art. High culture isn't free. You have to be rich to cultivate an appreciation for it. The people that gave their lives so you could appreciate fine art never got a chance to think about the difference between impressionism and ash can schools of painting. Mostly they just went over there and shot people because some rich asshole told them to.

[CTyankee]

118. Not entirely true in history. In the early days of the Italian Renaissance the guilds

sponsored a LOT of the best art and architecture. The workers gladly participated in their guilds funding of some of the most wonderful projects ever done there. It was major part of their idea of a Republic. The same held in Siena. Both centers of major art in the 15the century were avidly supported by the workers.

Plenty of people who were/are not rich in our country are art lovers, hence free admission to places like the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Old man Morgan was a rich industrialist and a bastard when it came to his workers, but he aimed to democratize interest in the art, hence his efforts over changing our import duty laws to allow people like himself to buy and bring over art from Europe to put in his museum.

Interestingly, your examples, particularly ashcan school, of art arose from middle and lower class concerned artists. See George Bellows and his works circa 1900 of NYC tenements...

[rrneck]

119. This is not the Renaissance.

And the gifts of the robber barons are just another example of trickle down economics. The fact remains we have the greatest fighting force ever amassed in the history of the human race to protect the wealth of corporations. It is now as it always was, a rich man's war and a poor man's fight. And the wealth that allows us to discuss the finer points of art history was amassed through the sacrifice of those who will never get that opportunity. And they used guns to do it.

If you're concerned about "gun culture" and mourn that there isn't enough classical culture and sensitivity in this country, it's because many of the best and brightest of us were raised to kill for the money to pay for it rather than enjoy it. They never got the chance to anthropomorphize painting, music and sculpture. Some rich asshole handed them a gun instead. That's where your crude, distasteful "gun culture" comes from.

[CTyankee]

120. hey, I'm not the one who is constantly talking about gun culture here. You have me

confused with another poster, I think. My contention is that we have wrongheadedly not thought through public safety. We stop at one point and never ever return as if the words themselves are anathema to freedom, period. That to me is short sighted of us.

What you say about our amassed fighting force is true and I am not arguing with you about it. If anything, I agree more with YOU about the "rich man's war and poor man's fight." But then you jump to "allows us to discuss the finer points of art history, etc" and go way off what I was even talking about.

You've really defined me in a way that is I guess a "fit" with some notion you have of me and I don't agree with it. Nowhere have I come out foursquare against the democratization of the arts. If anything, I try to prove just the opposite, when I talk about the struggle of workers and citizens in the republic of Florence, whose history shows that they meant to throw off the tyranny of the dukes, refuse to be their serfs and gather in the cities to develop power in their guilds, defend the dignity of their work and their lives and know, support and revere some of the greatest art the world has ever known. If anything, this is a great example of the struggle of ordinary people against the power of the rich and I am celebrating that struggle. We have more in common than you think!

[rrneck]

121. We all have more in common than we think.

We're all human. I think sometimes we forget that. I think we have a tendency to defend ideology over humanity. We think we know how to make the world a better place and we become so attached to our plan we think it will do anything. And we would be wrong. But in an effort to apply a solution where it doesn't belong we treat others unjustly. There are very few truly evil people in the world, but there are plenty of misguided consumers.

I guess I've heard the entire spectrum of gun control ideas here in the last four years. I haven't heard a single one that would work. Not one. And most every proposal was presented with the fervor of a tent revival with hosannas all around. Unfortunately, the praise was not for the efficacy of the proposal, but for it's expression of liberal ideology.

The left has been the inspiration for every sociocultural advancement in this country since it's founding. It will continue to do so, and the need for change is increasing every day. The basic social contract of nurturing, compassion, and equitable contribution to the group are liberal ideals and the way a successful society is run. But it isn't perfect, nothing made by human hands is. And when the fight starts, liberal ideology as it is currently understood does not apply.

If you are ever unlucky enough to be confronted by someone who intends to do you harm, the social safety net will have failed. There won't be any help. You won't nurture your way out of an assault. Most people who live in dodgy neighborhoods, work in crappy jobs with no rights, who are stuck in abusive relationships with no way out, or just generally deal with what they call the real world know this. That's because every act of violence is a societal failure. And when society fails, uncivilized behavior is the rule of the day.

There is an inherent classicism in the way portions of liberal ideology are expressed and applied. Gun control legislation is one example. The solutions offered for "gun violence" often as not sound as if they come from someone in a gated community sipping Merlot and sniffing at the crude heathens that can't solve their differences in a more genteel manner. It costs us elections. Here are some examples if you care to have a look.

[CTyankee]

122. I did care. So I looked at your examples.

It is true. Between what is said and what is heard falls the shadow.

But there are other voices. My daughter called me yesterday. She works at my grandson's school as a volunteer. She's there every day. This shooting has deeply disturbed her as only someone in her position would. My grandson, age 8, wanted to hear from the kids at the Sandy Hook school had to say. He was curious about that.

In all the discussions where we talk about what could be done, here is an 8 year old kid all the way across the country from CT in CA and he wants to hear from the kids in the school.

I contemplate this...

[sharp_stick]

123. Hell, I'd settle for

enforcing the current background check laws and adding laws mandating secure storage of weapons and ammunition.

The NRA could find enough cash in the cushions of LaPierres's couch to buy everyone a really good gun safe.

[Lint Head]

11. I heard that guns were purchased in another state.

[morningfog]

14. Stricter motha fucka laws!!!!!

[kestrel91316]

59. They aren't strict enough by half. How about this:

All gun owners should have the legal duty to keep their guns under lock and key in a federally-approved heavy duty gun safe unless they have them ON their person and/or are actively using them. Should anyone other than the registered user get ahold of them because the owner has neglected to lock them up, the owner will be prosecuted as an equal accomplice to any crime committed with them.

That means potentially the DP if they are used to murder.

I love that. RWers should, too. It sounds like something right out of Leviticus.

[rDigital]

61. You support the death penalty? How progressive of you... nt

[kestrel91316]

66. For negligent gun nuts whose guns are used to

commit mass murder? I sure as hell do.

[rDigital]

72. The death penalty is never progressive. nt

[kestrel91316]

97. Label it as you wish. I, a dedicated liberal, support its very limited use.

[rDigital]

98. Then you're neither. nt

[white_wolf]

77. First of all, the DP is nothing more than state sanctioned murder.

It needs to be abolished. Secondly, I don't know about criminal prosecution, but surely we can hold them liable in civil court.

[JCMach1]

76. It proves the need for something stronger as the rules still got those weapons into the hands of the

shooter... DESPITE the fact the mother was a 'responsible' gun owner.

She did everything right. It is the nature of those weapons that is called into question.

[bettyellen]

3. Ha ha ha.

[Progressive dog]

4. Yeah, you can nt

[RandiFan1290]

5. GFYS

[Freddie Stubbs]

43. When you can't think of a smart response to a logical argument...

[Freddie Stubbs]

88. Using insults and foul language is the type of behavior one would expect from Tea Party types

[WilliamPitt]

6. Speaking of things that should be locked up

[dkf]

9. Just being real.

[morningfog]

16. You should be real more often. I would like to see more transparency from you.

[kestrel91316]

60. Aw, c'mon, we all know THAT'S never gonna happen.

But we all know what this one is about.

[Cetacea]

15. How about we start with the people who enabled our invasion of Iraq

No one seems to be locking them up, and they killed, we can assume, thousands of innocent children. Nor is anyone labelling them as having a mental illness. We can include many of our crack journalists in this group.

[El Supremo]

8. Aren't they the same?

I mean aren't all gun owners mentally deficient or something? The other way around isn't true.

I HATE GUNS!!!!

[dkf]

12. I don't want guns around me either but I also know I'm not getting others to give theirs up

[cleanhippie]

24. No more mentally deficient than

you are.


What ignorant nonsense. How about trying to add to the conversation instead of just throwing shit.

[El Supremo]

39. Thank you very much!

I'd return the compliment but you aren't worth it.

[cleanhippie]

90. Well played! The "I know you are but what am I" defense.

[MotherPetrie]

13. Remember when the majority of adults smoked? I do.

Virtually every public place you walked into, except churches and movie theaters and elementary school classrooms, had smokers in it. I didn't smoke but I would come home from work at my office reeking of everyone else's smoke.

What happened?

Education, legislators standing up to big tobacco, lawsuits, and balls. And the desire to stop people dying ugly needless deaths from cigarette-related diseases. A surgeon general's warning label was finally imprinted on cigarette packaging. Was that much? Fuck no, but it was a start and once it started, it kept going. Cigarette ads banned on TV, a gradual awareness that smoking was deadly and anti-social.

At my work it started with smoking rooms at work. Ended with no smoking anywhere on the campus. As it became harder to smoke, more and more people quit.

Now non-smoking is the norm in public places in the U.S. A minority of people smoke and that number continues to drop.

Just imagine if people like you stood around wringing their hands 50 or so years ago, saying there is no use in doing anything because people will always smoke.

Guess what? They didn't and they don't.

[enough]

22. Interesting point. (nt)

[cleanhippie]

30. Well yeah, and smoking was a Constituional Right too!!!

[MotherPetrie]

40. so are you a member of a well-regulated militia? Or just an average gun worshipper

Who thinks human life is simply unfortunate collateral damage that shouldn't inhibit your right to worship your death machine?

[cleanhippie]

89. Hahahahahaha! WHERE do you come up with this stuff?

You should go into stand-up! You are really funny!


But it adds nothing to the conversation. Let's chat another time when you have regained control over your emotions and are able to speak rationally.

[Marengo]

93. Ownership equals worship in your view?

[dkf]

37. Well go ahead and convince people to give up their guns.

But no one outlawed cigarettes and they aren't going to outlaw guns.

The right wants women to voluntarily stop having abortions. They are free to do that also. But they shouldn't be able to outlaw abortions.

[MotherPetrie]

42. Where did I mention outlawing guns?

[dkf]

47. I'm fine with a campaign that asks people with guns to give them up.

But gun laws are like abortion laws. I don't think either of those will land up being banned.

[backscatter712]

17. Where's that damned unrec?

[KoKo]

18. What if we get to the bottom that: BOTH ARE PROBLEMS! n/t

[Glitterati]

19. Bullshit!

Mental illness didn't kill 20 BABIES today. A GUN did.

[Cetacea]

23. Thank you. n/t

[cleanhippie]

31. Yeah, sure. That gun did all that by itself.

No lunatic required.

[madinmaryland]

44. You got that right. It was the gun, that just happened to be held by a lunatic. nt

[neverforget]

50. That weapon allowed that lunatic to kill 26 people.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

82. Here's a photo of the shooter.

[Posteritatis]

38. You're gonna see a lot of people around here claiming 'the mentally ill' did, though.

Every time there's a mass shooting a lot of people here go to pretty ugly places about that.

[smirkymonkey]

83. I am sick of this all being blamed on mental illness.

Perhaps the gunman was just a miserable angry asshole. It's easy to blame it on mental illness so that we don't have to look at ourselves and our culture. It could have been our culture of hatred, violence and revenge that led to this tragedy today, but nobody wants to look that closely at society at large.

[TXDemoGal]

21. So you make no distinction...

between kinds of guns?

A black powder muzzle loading musket is the same as a handgun...is the same as a semiautomatic...is the same as a fully automatic? They should all be legal?

To that I say bullshit.

[dkf]

41. So everyone here thinks its okay to have guns that kill a few people

Just not guns that can kill a lot of people? Yeah sure.

[Rex]

105. You are not believable..

[renie408]

25. It's a little too soon to be making jokes.

Oh..wait...was this post SERIOUS??

Sorry. It was so absolutely fucking RIDICULOUS I figured it must be a joke.

[Algebra Palin]

26. the fact is:

a lot of gun owners are ITCHING to shoot someone. they might bring up the 2nd amendment, or yap about 'self-defence,' but the truth is they're DYING to try out that firepower on a human.
a lot of gun owners are george zimmermans.
just sayin. . .

[smokey nj]

34. Best. Username. Ever.

Welcome!

[cleanhippie]

35. The fact is:

a lot of DU'ers activated their sock puppets so that they could spew nonsense and ad hominems and only suffer having their sock puppet accounts banned.


Just sayin...

[hack89]

102. As evidenced by our steadily falling murder rates ... oh wait. nt

[Agnosticsherbet]

27. Research shows that strict gun contol laws save lives.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/101650423

And gun owners are not the victims here.

[Stinky The Clown]

28. Since we can't control guns, then I say we confiscate them and melt them and make ownership . . . .

. . . . . a serious crime with serious jail time.

[rDigital]

63. Good luck with that. nt

[Lint Head]

29. But getting rid of the NRA is doable. Promoting tools for killing should be controlled.

Mental illness is not a tool for killing. Cars are not tools for killing. Tall buildings are not tools for killing. Guns are specifically made for killing. Some are made for target shooting but that is nothing more than being a good shot. I own plenty of guns and doing any of the above is not threat to my freedoms. Knives are mostly made for food prep and cutting underbrush. The type used for killing should be treated the same.

[marions ghost]

33. you call being held hostage by the gun lobby a "free" society?

our lives are affected by this threat day in and day out...

[bluestate10]

45. You're wrong.

Background checks, national registration standards and holding gun owners responsible for controlling their guns WOULD have prevented the shootings today. We all three policies. Neither one restricts gun legitimate ownership, or the types of guns that can be owned.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

48. How would any of those change what happened today?

- Background check was done for the pistols
- Registration would not have changed anything if the background check was passed.
- The owner is dead...not sure how much punishment we could give her for not securing things better.

As a parent I was surprised just how many of our secrets, including where the safe combo was hidden our daughters knew.

[kestrel91316]

65. If gun owners knew that failure to lock their guns away

so that people couldn't simply take them, and that said failure resulted in punishment equal to that of the actual perp (say, for instance, DP in case of mass murder), they might give serious consideration to locking their guns up safely.

Fear of harsh punishment has a way of making people behave appropriately.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

67. I agree with the requirements to lock things up

CA has gone overboard in requiring active state certification of storage containers, but its a good concept. Not sure what the law in Conn is about securing things.

I agree to a point with some degree of liability if reasonable precautions were not taken, known thefts/loss not reported, though the DP is a bit much if you did not pull the trigger. Even Felony Murder does not rate the DP, even in Texas.

[kestrel91316]

100. I liken it to giving the DP to accessories to murder.

Look, if gun owners don't like the risk, they can always either lock their guns up or not own them. The point is, they need to ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY for the consequences of their personal negligence.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

103. Which is not done in any state that I know of, even Texas

I agree with locking them up firearms in a reasonable manner. If that occurs and they are still stolen, would you hold still hold the owners responsible?

If a Veterinarian has taken reasonable precautions to protect the drugs stored on their site and gets robbed anyway and someone ODs, what would be their responsibility?

There are reasonable limits and requirements that can and should be followed. The problem will be encoding them into law.

[Budgies Revenge]

78. I believe there is also a harsh penalty for committing cold blooded murder

...but that doesn't seem to be stopping people from doing it.

[kestrel91316]

99. Nope, but keeping guns out of their hands could save lives.

Why are people opposed to trying this? If gun owners don't like the idea that THEY are responsible for the harm their weapons do, maybe they won't want to risk their freedom by being negligent. Maybe they won't want to own so many guns, as each one increases the risk to the owner.

[dkf]

49. What law would have taken the gun from the mother?

How would your desired laws have prevented this?

[rDigital]

64. No.

[Gregorian]

46. We need to take health care far more seriously than we do.

We have the answers, yet no one is paying enough attention.

The same goes for physical health. If you're breathing, it's considered a sign of good health. Almost that bad.

And mental health is not even on our radar screen.

This was not a gun issue. This was mental health.

Thanks for posting.

[dkf]

51. I agree that is the one thing we keep re-learning.

That is the one solution that would work but its not the focus, not here at least.

[forthemiddle]

85. Do you then want all medical records considered public record?

The only way to stop a mentally disturbed, but someone who has not yet committed a crime, from owning a gun is to open up medical records, and require physicians to report patients to a "do not sell list". Do you really want that? Are your discussions with your doctor (if you don't proclaim during your visit a desire to shoot up a kindergarten class) confidential.

What is next, making a public list of STD carriers - "do not sleep with list", etc.?

This is a very slippery slope that I don't think anyone here wants to go down. Also in this case, should everyone in your family also be put on that "do not sell list"? Ask yourself if that brother of yours (the one that has access to your house because he lets your dog out when you are away) has ever said to the doctor, "I am somewhat depressed".

In this case the mother seems to have displayed very bad judgment, but should bad judgment be criminal? What if in the next few days we find out that the guns were safely in a case locked up? Does that change anything? Adam seems hell bent on what he was going to do, he would have gotten the weapons elsewhere (a neighbor, a friend, another relative). Remember, I believe it was Jonesboro, those kids went to Grandma and Grandpas house (the kid didn't live there) and stole guns for that mass shooting, do we now take away there right to own guns to?

[Gregorian]

92. Did you know that Germany recently passed laws making it a crime to spank children?

I never said this was going to be a quick solution. But I see very clearly how and why we arrived at our present situation today. Even the severe partisan split.

Now there have been replies to my posts stating that there are people with mental problems that are not related to child abuse. I have to wonder just how many there are. My fairly educated guess is that the low level of emotional crippling in nearly every person is what is the problem. Our definition of mental health is so far off target that we are excluding most of the population.

Nothing needs to happen other than making sure children are raised humanely, and that everyone gets solid training on emotional maturity.

Even though the research was done a quarter century ago, this topic is almost as taboo as it gets. It is the answer. And this should be the time when we finally begin real, solid training and therapy along with math and English.

[Mass]

52. Your post is the problem. A post that shows that owning guns is more important than the life of

little kids, at least for you. This is the sign of a sick country, where violence and gun ownership is so important that we cannot stop and think whether we could do something or not.

May be we could impose a stigma on people who own guns (except for those who have good reasons to have them) equivalent to cigarette smokers. May be we could stop telling our kids that guns are so great. May be we could make clear to movies and series makers that gun violence and violence in general is not acceptable? But do something. Stop being lumps.

[RetroLounge]

108. Exactly

RL

[NoMoreWarNow]

54. how about blaming income inequality?

http://m.guardiannews.com/books/2009/mar/13/the-spirit-level

[kestrel91316]

55. Funny, other free societies don't seem to have this same problem.

[nadinbrzezinski]

57. Tell me, why is there a DIRECT CORRELATION

Between tougher gun control laws and LOWER gun violence? Once you find the answer to that one, come back to us with your NRA talking points.

[kestrel91316]

62. Wait - did you SERIOUSLY just compare the MURDER of nearly 30

people, including 20 KINDERGARTENERS, to paying taxes????

Eff you and the horse you rode in on.

[BainsBane]

68. Yeah, its all the fault of people who take antidepressants

And seek treatment for the number one illness in the world-- depression.
It has nothing to do with the fact that there are millions of guns with mass killing capacity in this country. Fuck the goddamn bigots. Don't you think there is enough stigma about mental illness? Gun lovers will go to any lengths to avoid the fact that gun proliferation results in the mass murder of little children.

[The Midway Rebel]

69. Paying taxes = mass murder

Logic fail of the day. Maybe ever.

[DevonRex]

70. Yeah, what's a little human sacrifice, of CHILDREN,

right? Just the price we pay so motherfucking IDIOTS get to freely SHOOT OTHER PEOPLE'S CHILDREN.

Or buy the guns their child shoots other people's children with.

Your lack of empathy is astounding.

[Rex]

71. You can blame guns, but I would never actually expect

you to put the blame on the root of the cause. You picked exactly what I expected you to pick on.

[Fresh_Start]

73. mass murder is not the price of living in a free society

there are many other free societies in the world that do not have this problem.
This problem is the gun nuts fault.

[Bjorn Against]

74. We have paid too high of a price for your so-called "free society"

26 people dead and you call it the price we pay for living in a free society? You compare seeing kids die to paying taxes? Fuck you.

I had a friend from high school killed by a gun, maybe his death was also just the price we pay for your "freedom" to have weapons designed to kill people.

The rest of us need to have the freedom to live without you fucking gun toting assholes making our society more dangerous. Whether you pull the trigger on someone or not, if you support the insane NRA agenda that makes it extremely easy for just about anyone to get a gun then you have the blood of these kids on your hands. But apparently those kids are just the price we have to pay for your goddamn "freedom" to stroke your guns. Once again fuck you, I don't want to pay anymore of your costs.

Those kids were not taxes they were human beings you sick fuck.

I normally don't get this harsh with people but when you compare the death of kids to paying taxes you deserve all the personal attacks coming your way because you are a absolutely disgusting person.

[JDPriestly]

80. I think we should require gun owners who are neither in the military, the police or the national

guard to obtain licenses. I think that those licenses should cost a lot of money -- enough to cover the expense of paying for the police, medical and judicial services related to gun ownership and gun violence.

Why should those of us who do not insist on owning guns have to pay for the arrests of people who legally or illegally obtain guns and commit crimes with them? Why should those of us who do not own guns have to pay to keep criminals with guns, whether obtained legally or illegally under control? Why should those of us who have no guns have to pay to make ourselves safe from dangerous people with guns?

Let gun-lovers take some responsibility and pay up front for the costs of policing guns and caring for the victims of gun violence.

[Budgies Revenge]

81. So, in your opinion

only people with lots of money should be allowed to own guns?

[quaker bill]

87. The "just bury the kids and move on" argument is lame

But there are alot of iterations of it here.

[Skidmore]

91. Or you can make asinine statements like

you have and stand by bewildered as to why people think you sound like a jerk.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

94. we can't stop people from being mentally ill, but we sure as hell can stop guns

the fact that we don't want (or precisely that you don't want to) is another story

[Harmony Blue]

95. +1. Gun crisis must be tackled first

then we can address universal health care.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

104. Start with violence and the gun problem will mostly go away

[spanone]

106. such a fucking optimistic view of the world......and such utter fucking bullshit

[IMG][/IMG]

[RetroLounge]

109. MASS MURDER "is the price we pay for living in a free society."

So says dkf.

Remember this. Remember that this was said and by whom.

dkf says MASS MURDER of children with a gun "is the price we pay for living in a free society."

What a bunch of fucking lunatic right wing bullshit.

RL

[Terra Alta]

110. Other countries live in a free society

yet they don't have anywhere near the number of mass shootings the US does.

I'm not for taking away all guns, but there does need to be more restrictions.

[Democracyinkind]

113. Why is the cost so much lower in other "free" societies?

[Floyd_Gondolli]

117. Yeah, let's just throw up our hands and give up

The pablum in the OP is digitized shit on a shingle.