22-month-old boy drowns in pool

[HooptieWagon]

100. I agree with much of that.

The six suicide victims I knew are certainly a small, anecdotal sample. One was manic-depressive, another had long-term depression. I didn't know them well enough to know of previous attempts, but it wouldn't surprise me. The 4 others were completely out of the blue. If the goal is to reduce all suicides, which it should be, then efforts spent towards mental health treatment is likely to be more productive than taking guns away from all owners. And of course, better mental health treatment might also reduce the number of mass killings.

I agree with targeting those who would use guns for violence. About 2/3 are previously convicted felons, mostly young males, who already aren't allowed to possess guns. DOJ numbers. Better background checks, and closing the gun-show loophole, would make it harder for them to get weapons and reduce the number of weapons on the streets. Its my understanding that a large majority of gun-owners would support this. An AWB would have next to no effect, since they mostly use handguns.

Yea, Bubbas and yahoos make easy targets. And they're probably responsible for a sizeable percentage of the accidental shootings, and some of the homicides. Education and peer-pressure from responsible gun owners might be the most productive strategy with them. Lumping millions of responsible gun-owners in with the irresponsible yahoos and criminals is not going to be productive, and will cause a huge backlash.