Hey You With The Gun...Yeah, YOU

[thucythucy]

136. Except of course the mother of the Connecticut

shooter was a legal gun owner, right up until the moment her gun was used to kill her, after which it was used to slaughter all those children and their teachers. So it isn't only violent criminals we're talking about, or the mentally ill. It's people who own guns for what you probably see as perfectly legitimate reasons, who nonetheless end up providing the tools for people to do enormous damage.

And it still seems obvious to me that adding firearms into the mix of untreated mental health issues, substance abuse, plus the sheer number of stupid, deluded, angry people in this culture, makes the easy availability of weapons a deadly catalyst in situations that might not otherwise be lethal.

One thing I'm learning is why these weapons are so popular. It's spelled out on a DU thread, Upaloopa I think it was, posting an OP asking just that question. The basic answer I took away was: they're easy. Little recoil, easy to aim, easy to change magazines, easy to maintain, lightweight, etc. etc. Even a child can use them.

To me that's a big part of this issue. Simply put, it shouldn't be this easy for an adolescent with a grudge to kill so many people so quickly. And yes, I know nation wide that car wrecks kill almost as many as guns, so let's deal with that as well. I don't see this as an either/or issue, but rather a mix of problems which all need to be addressed--including the massive number of weapons sloshing around in our society.

Anyway, I think we're going to have to agree to disagree on this one, much as we agree on other issues.

Best wishes.