Comments (13) (Please sign in to comment)

1. 

   wdpeck said, 6 months ago

   There were no fewer guns around 40 years ago – something else changed to start this trend of events. Maybe the amount of attention the press gives the disturbed perpatrators of these attacks has something to do with it – if you plan an attack now, you know you’ll be all over the headlines on CNN, Fox, MSNBC, etc. You can go out in a blaze of “glory”.
2. 

   Rx71Wm29 said, 6 months ago

   Odd that anyone would pursue “glory” AFTER they are dead. Maybe the NRA can work that idea into their stump speeches: “Guns now. Glory after you die!”. I’m sure Wayne LaPierre will like that one!
3. 

   krisjackson01 said, 6 months ago

   Assault weapons must be banned. This is not just a slogan, we have to do this.
4. 

   bigal666 said, 6 months ago

   if we could put the same amount of effort into caring for mentally ill people that we put into “gun control” we might have something Making high-capacity magazines illegal only mkes the bad guys reload. Not the best answer..
5. 

   rvernon said, 6 months ago

   @bigal666

   You don’t think “making the bad guys reload” is worthwhile? I’m pretty sure if you were one of the people who had time to escape or rush the shooter as he was reloading, you’d change your mind.
6. 

   JCSupSvc said, 6 months ago

   When I was a kid they used to bring their shotguns and rifles on the school bus and keep them in their lockers so they could go hunting after school. No “Gun Free Zones” then, and no school shootings either.
7. 

   Goblinopolis said, 6 months ago

   Guns don’t need to be controlled. They’re incapable of independent action. The people who use guns to commit crimes are the logical targets for control.
8. 

   Another Dave said, 6 months ago

   Australia put incredibly stringent gun controls in place in 1996 after a horrible school shooting. There hasn’t been a single mass shooting (4+ people as it’s defined here in the US) since that time. 16 years with no mass shootings.
9. 

   rvernon said, 6 months ago

   @Goblinopolis

   B.S. Complete and utter b.s. If that evil freak’s mother had NOT been able to legally buy that gun, most of those kids would be alive today. Address mental illness, address the root causes of crime, but IN THE MEANTIME make it harder for the criminally insane to mow down our children.
10. 

    CFinFL said, 6 months ago

    Australia to the USA is apples to oranges for a variety of reasons. Just read that a deranged person in China, slashed over 20 young students & a teacher with a KNIFE—no word on fatalities. Smaller clips are often duct taped end to end & can be changed out in seconds by an experienced user—just as effective as a single large capacity one. As with nuclear arms, the gun genie is out of the bottle. A total ban on every gun in the US would not have any real effect on availability on the black market. Felons are arrested everyday with illegal guns of every variety. Wishful thinking & feel good new laws do absolutely to solve our present I am not resposible for my own actions society. They are about as worthless as a restraining order against a ticked off former spouse.
11. 

    rvernon said, 6 months ago

    @CFinFL

    Nonsense.
12. 

    Gee Man said, 6 months ago

    Wdpeck-perhaps you mean there were no fewer guns per capita?That is possible, although I wouldn’t be surprised if it had climbed at least some- regardless, it is nearly three times higher than other western democracies like Canada, Germany, and Switzerland. But US gun-death rates run almost 20 times higher than the average for the other most developed/richest countries.

    There were certainly less guns around than the nearly 300 million in the US today. More particularly, there were a LOT fewer assault rifles and large capacity clips – both of which seem to be key ingredients in incidents like Newtown and Aurora. Being able to get a lot of rounds off quick is absolutely key in these events – the shooters unload 30+ or 50+ rounds in a minute or so, that’s a lot of damage, that’s a lot of no-chance to respond, or run, or charge, or get one’s bearings for those attacked. Newtown, Aurora, Virginia Tech, Columbine, all were over in minutes – before an armed guard and a school constable in Columbine could respond effectively, even with armed potential defenders in the building. Police in Newtown were on scene in about five minutes – the damage was already done.
13. 

    rvernon said, 6 months ago

    @CFinFL

    “No word on fatalities” is awfully convenient of you to say, since a quick Google search turns up multiple sources that say there were ZERO fatalities. If that knife-wielding nut in China had had a semi-automatic assault rifle instead of a knife, those 22 kids would be DEAD instead of injured.

    And every single point you make has nothing to do with mass shootings. The massacres we’ve experienced in the last 20 years or so haven’t been “felons” who got their guns illegally, they’ve been ordinary people who bought them because they were legal and easy to get, or (like in Newtown) stole them from other people who bought them because they were legal and easy to get. Tell the parents of those twenty little kids who just got mowed down that it still would’ve happened even if that gun had been impossible for Lanza’s mother to buy.

    Your argument is just so absurd because you’re pretending that if laws don’t completely stamp out crime 100%, there’s no point to them. Well if that were true, why have traffic laws, since a lot of people speed and run stop signs anyway? You can put a stop sign on every corner and somebody someday is going to roll through one of them anyway. So let’s just not have stop signs. Why have “feel good” building codes? Some contractor somewhere is still going to leave out fire doors and use substandard materials. So let’s not have any codes. Let’s not have any laws at all.
14. Refresh Comments.