WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT THIS....NOW!

The decent ones do, unfortunately America seems cursed with a disproportionate number of paranoid weirdos.

Besides that, we here in Europe aren't governed by the gun lobby.

Yep, the gun nuts rule there..

Did you just now realize that a lot of gun owners are incompetent or unqualified as responsible owners? This is not a new problem. There are no restrictions in place for ownership based on training, safety or otherwise.

He could have shot a bystander just as easily.

Making up statistics is a real factually based approach to winning an argument.


Mexico also has a very porous border with America, drugs go one way, firearms go the other. America's gun (and drug) laws are Mexico's problem. We're lucky enough to be the other side of the Atlantic.

This entire issue, wil be, sadly, a generational occurrence. American politics is seasonal and cyclic. I see a time when the congress will begin listening more to the people than to their "overlords" like the NRA.
Sadly, today the NRA does wield power that is un -proportional to its mass .
Im a gun owner and kinda agree with the :Darwinian Rule" of extinction of the stupid. As enough of those examples make their tracks known, the sooner the states will begin to assert some need for special controls on weapons and that will perhaps open the door to sane legislation that will prevent weapons falling into the hands of felons and ersatz gun dealers who are merely "fences" for stolen weapons .

As soon a reasonable gun owners and others can come together and decide the needs are now and that the 2nd Amendment needn't be worshipped as a totally "hands off phrase" , maybe then we can move forward and join the other nations and grow the **** up .

Let's hope you are right and it happens soon, not in fifty years..

As RAT said in this mornings "Pearls Before Swine"
He said
"I miss the days (before the internet) when we could bullshit with impunity"

Dammit. When are we going to demand that 2 year olds stop having the mental age of 2 year olds?

I think guns should be taxed at 100% and should be bubblegum pink.

I'm with you on this. How about a gun "enthusiast" who casual carries with one in the chamber?

You don't know stupid yet. The perverted little git has written tons of even more stupid crap than that.

Oralloy has no concept of the Constitution past a concept. A very abridged, personal, weaselly concept of the Constitution.

But drive a car without a license which at least requires a written test and a driving test, you'll get ticketed and maybe have your rights to a driving prohibited.

Not a bad idea.

I'm starting to go along with that way of thinking.

I would never have been allowed anywhere near a gun at that age.

If I didn't know that these idiots also manage to kill a lot of other people, I'd be tempted to let them win the Darwin prize as a community.

It does make a change when a kid kills a gun owner. It's usually the other way round.

The first time I ever saw a real gun was aged 15, during an assembly at school, when the army came in to do a careers talk. They brought guns, but no ammunition.

The first hand gun I saw was on my fathers desk, a 1911 laying there unloaded. I was allowed to handle it. I wasn't allowed to pull a trigger or point it at anyone.

There were weapons at home and at my grandparents.

But they weren't 'flashed'. They were tools.

I still believe in private ownership. But I don't believe everyone should be allowed to get their hands on one.

I didn't use to believe in registration, but I do now. I didn't used to believe in background checks, but I do know. An exhaustive background check through a federal database (and I'm Republican).

We require driver's education and owning a weapon ought to require it, too. And a license.

I had firearms in my home and even though I am very cold on "toy" guns, my children had pop guns 9corks on a lanyard) and they were 'disarmed' if I caught them being aimed at people or animals.

They also got to fire a pellet pistol I bought for plinking with them in the backyard. We used cans and bulls eyes never anything with a human on them. They knew I hunted and understood what that meant.

We lived in Nebraska and they were taught what it means to choose to eat meat, and that trophey kills were strictly verboten though hides and fur were utilized but not for interior decoration.

Its one thing to have the right to bear arms. Its another to be responsible enough to bear arms. And if that isn't clear to the NRA then they need some disarming themselves. What they just don't get is even criminals have the same Constitutional rights to guns they do. And now its time to control the idiots, the sick and the criminal access to fire arms.

America is the last free country on the planet, and Americans like it that way.

(Meaning we like that we are free, not that we like that the rest of the world isn't free.)