Another major school shooting today ... Newtown, Conn

I don't even know if they are all that politically savvy,
unless you equate throwing around huge sums of money with being politically savvy.

How much discussion would you like?

We already have laws, and a whole system of fines based on the safe handling of vehicles..
There are no such laws for guns

Then there is the registration, testing, licensing, requirements like a medical exams, insurance,
And gun owner jump through what hoops??/

Yeah, you're probably right. I don't know the stats...

but I do know that most schools/ some worksplaces have counsellors and teachers or co-workers trained to look for just this sort of thing. Most school districts have programs set up to intervene if they see certain behaviours or patterns...

...do you, I wonder, have stats on how many murders or abuses have been thwarted, or could have been had there been no guns in the vicinity?

Shouldn't the aim be to prevent them all?

These other sources of childrens' deaths don't seem to generate the same outcry for solutions as do mass killings.

Oh yes they do. Play grounds are now a completely different landscape. Every mall, school, carnival in the world has cameras now and an emergency procedure if a kid goes missing.

One reason is that they don't get the same degree of media attention as a mass murder, and, frankly, they don't have the same viceral impact on the public.

Yes they do. A child's murder is usually a front page item.

The difference seems to be that when it comes to mass shootings, a lot of people think there is a quick and easy fix.

No they don't. People don't think that at all.

Every example you gave above was wrong.

Every single death by any other means is investigated fully.

Cars are now safer for two reasons, people demanded the changes and liability.
If a doctor doesn't refuse to suspend a driver who shouldn't be on the road, he's liable. And so on...
Not so with guns. A dealer can sell to anyone. Gun manufactures can produce far more than they can sell legally in the US and sell them to anyone they want, or so it seems. Most of the illegal guns in the N. American, never mind the world, are Made in the USA. And nobody is is liable. Ever.
Doesn't seem fair does it?

When my son attended school in Houston, staying with his mother then, I visited him there. I saw walking the halls at least one armed officer. I believe two officers per each school would not be far fetched, until something else can be figured out. A team of two to watch out for each other. The kids in my son's school were not traumatized by the sight. They were in fact rather blasé about it.

Quote:

Why does that matter? Does it make the victims of car accidents any less dead?

No, but it means that cars when put to their primary use kill far less per hour used than guns do.

In essence, this is the way we in America want things to be. We want our freedom, and we want our firearms, and if we have to endure the occasional school shooting, so be it. A terrible shame, but hey -- didn't some guy in China just do the same thing with a knife?

Meaning, as I heard on NPR radio the other day, during an interview of the author that recently wrote about mass killings in Mother Jones, most of these killings are by males under 40 and white....

It's not correct simply because a gun owner thinks it is, but because our entire society does too. Think of all of the deaths of children we could prevent if we outlawed automobiles. Automobiles kill vastly more children than guns. No one, though, would stand, for the elimination of the auto, no matter how many children's lives it ultimately saved.

Agreed; but it's up to the Supreme Court to update our Constitution.

Why most Constitutional attorneys have failed to bring this issue to the SC also proves they are behind the times.

December 15, 2012
Do We Have the Courage to Stop This?
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

IN the harrowing aftermath of the school shooting in Connecticut, one thought wells in my mind: Why can’t we regulate guns as seriously as we do cars?

The fundamental reason kids are dying in massacres like this one is not that we have lunatics or criminals — all countries have them — but that we suffer from a political failure to regulate guns.

Children ages 5 to 14 in America are 13 times as likely to be murdered with guns as children in other industrialized countries, according to David Hemenway, a public health specialist at Harvard who has written an excellent book on gun violence.

American schoolchildren are protected by building codes that govern stairways and windows. School buses must meet safety standards, and the bus drivers have to pass tests. Cafeteria food is regulated for safety. The only things we seem lax about are the things most likely to kill.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has five pages of regulations about ladders, while federal authorities shrug at serious curbs on firearms. Ladders kill around 300 Americans a year, and guns 30,000.

We even regulate toy guns, by requiring orange tips — but lawmakers don’t have the gumption to stand up to National Rifle Association extremists and regulate real guns as carefully as we do toys. What do we make of the contrast between heroic teachers who stand up to a gunman and craven, feckless politicians who won’t stand up to the N.R.A.?

Look, I grew up on an Oregon farm where guns were a part of life; and my dad gave me a .22 rifle for my 12th birthday. I understand: shooting is fun! But so is driving, and we accept that we must wear seat belts, use headlights at night, and fill out forms to buy a car. Why can’t we be equally adult about regulating guns?

And don’t say that it won’t make a difference because crazies will always be able to get a gun. We’re not going to eliminate gun deaths, any more than we have eliminated auto accidents. But if we could reduce gun deaths by one-third, that would be 10,000 lives saved annually.

Likewise, don’t bother with the argument that if more people carried guns, they would deter shooters or interrupt them. Mass shooters typically kill themselves or are promptly caught, so it’s hard to see what deterrence would be added by having more people pack heat. There have been few if any cases in the United States in which an ordinary citizen with a gun stopped a mass shooting.

The tragedy isn’t one school shooting, it’s the unceasing toll across our country. More Americans die in gun homicides and suicides in six months than have died in the last 25 years in every terrorist attack and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq combined.

So what can we do? A starting point would be to limit gun purchases to one a month, to curb gun traffickers.

Likewise, we should restrict the sale of high-capacity magazines so that a shooter can’t kill as many people without reloading.

We should impose a universal background check for gun buyers, even with private sales.

Let’s make serial numbers more difficult to erase, and back California in its effort to require that new handguns imprint a microstamp on each shell so that it can be traced back to a particular gun.

Other countries offer a road map. In Australia in 1996, a mass killing of 35 people galvanized the nation’s conservative prime minister to ban certain rapid-fire long guns. The “national firearms agreement,” as it was known, led to the buyback of 650,000 guns and to tighter rules for licensing and safe storage of those remaining in public hands.

In the 18 years before the law, Australia suffered 13 mass shootings — but not one in the 14 years after the law took full effect. The murder rate with firearms has dropped by more than 40 percent, according to data compiled by the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, and the suicide rate with firearms has dropped by more than half.

For that matter, we can look for inspiration at our own history on auto safety. As with guns, some auto deaths are caused by people who break laws or behave irresponsibly. But we don’t shrug and say, “Cars don’t kill people, drunks do.”

Instead, we have required seat belts, air bags, child seats and crash safety standards. We have introduced limited licenses for young drivers and tried to curb the use of mobile phones while driving. All this has reduced America’s traffic fatality rate per mile driven by nearly 90 percent since the 1950s.

Some of you are alive today because of those auto safety regulations. And if we don’t treat guns in the same serious way, some of you and some of your children will die because of our failure.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/16/opinion/sunday/kristof-do-we-have-the-courage-to-stop-this.html

oralloy wrote:

Why does that matter? Does it make the victims of car accidents any less dead?

No, but it means that cars when put to their primary use kill far less per hour used than guns do.

I think we can have the dialogue without the NRA, if need be, but we need more elected officials and representatives who'll display less cow-towing to the NRA, and less fear of the NRA, for that to happen--we need some leadership with guts.

The NRA hasn't been able to keep Rep. Carolyn McCarthy from being re-elected--

And, having a member of Congress shot in the head, should help to balance out some of those lobbying efforts by the NRA, because if that incident didn't hit home with the legislators, what will.

Lustig Andrei wrote:

The NRA folks aren't stupid.

oh they're stupid all right

they can be stupid and politically savvy at the same time

I don't even know if they are all that politically savvy, unless you equate throwing around huge sums of money with being politically savvy.

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

Why stop there?

Cars kill far more adults and kids then guns. Surely there is a discussion we can have and a law we can pass that will put an end to these senseless deaths.

How much discussion would you like? We already have laws, and a whole system of fines based on the safe handling of vehicles..
There are no such laws for guns.

Then there is the registration, testing, licensing, requirements like a medical exams, insurance,

And gun owner jump through what hoops???

do you, I wonder, have stats on how many murders or abuses have been thwarted, or could have been had there been no guns in the vicinity?

Shouldn't the aim be to prevent them all?

Not so with guns. A dealer can sell to anyone.

Gun manufactures can produce far more than they can sell legally in the US and sell them to anyone they want, or so it seems. Most of the illegal guns in the N. American, never mind the world, are Made in the USA.

Doesn't seem fair does it?

What if any changes or meaningful compensation has the NRA or other gun organizations done to actually be accountable to people, it's products victims?

Even Tobacco is feeling getting it's comeuppance. But Big Guns??

They've spread lies to the gullible and people have bought it hook line and sinker.

Guns do not protect they just promote and propagate a more violent criminal and culture.

Owners are more likely to die by the bullet than non gun owners.

Has there ever been a case, other than cops? Anyone, an armed nobody, who has ever successfully shot and killed a rampaging monster?

Statistics prove over and over again, guns kill a lot of people in the USA.

Isn't it time there was some real discussion and concessions.

Why are the monstrous guns/weapons of today barely regulated, unlike every other aspect of your lives?

Why are there not even the simplest of regulations, like say a mental health evaluation?

Why are so many gun owners not locking away their guns?

Why are people allowed to buy an arsenal with out it raising an eyebrow?

Why are so many cartel and gang members brandishing american made guns?

Why are so many guns ending up on our streets?

Where are the restrictions placed by the manufacturers, the wholesalers, the retail outlets, the courts, the government?

So many needless deaths, WHY?

And why don't gun owners care??

Quote:

We should impose a universal background check for gun buyers, even with private sales.

The real goal of the background check system is not to block illegal sales. Rather it is just to hassle gun buyers by making them needlessly wait for their guns.

A true instant background check system would be no problem, but you will not be allowed to needlessly hassle gun buyers.

joefromchicago wrote:

None of this would have happened if those kindergartners had been armed.

Clearly when tomorrow comes around (or heck even tonight) there will be pundits and alleged news anchors of the Fox News Propaganda Network will be making their argument that will sound something similar to that. If not kindergartners themselves then kindergarten teachers.