Tom Toles for January 20, 2013

We do restrict First Amendment rights: you can’t slander someone or threaten his life or cry “fire” in a crowded theater, for example. No rights are absolute.

As 1effinday said, when the Second Amendment was written, the founders never dreamed of the weapons that are available today.

We do, and have for generations, limited what weapons the ordinary citizen may buy and possess. Try buying a case of hand grenades. No one wants to eliminate deadly weapons from every household. (“I’m sorry ma’am, we’ll have to take those steak knives.”) So the question is, where to draw the line. There is no easy answer to that one, folks. The line will always be arbitrary. Even the term “assault rifle”, coined by the gun makers to increase sales, is a term as hard to define as “pornography.” No one characteristic turns a rifle into an assault rifle. We have a failed school system, a failed social system, a failed mental health system, and as a result, a violent society. It is an enlarged concern for the welfare of our fellow citizens, and real action to make a better society that alone is going to reduce the violent crime rate (which has, I might add, been falling for the last couple decades), as well as identify and provide (or require) treatment for people like Adam Lanza. In the meantime, things like background checks (if done right and universally) may help. Personally I don’t care if “assault weapons” are banned or not. They aren’t the problem, but then again, nobody “needs” such a thing either. In fact, the only people I worry about are those who think that other kinds of gun don’t give them enough firepower, and that they NEED an AR15 to feel safe, or so they can do battle with the big, bad guvmint.

imply

The Second Amendment is QUAINT. So was the amendment that made alcohol illegal. Things can change if people look at a situation and apply common sense.

so where’s it going to happen? In your church? Hospital? another shopping mall? The Senate has to untie the hands of the ATF so they can do their job.

It’s ‘bated’. Unless you’re trying to catch something.

I think of the NRA the same way I think of terrorists. Their personal beliefs are more important to them than human life. They shame America by their very existence.

And exactly how would any petty law stop one single mass shooting from happening?Quaint? God given rights never change… only the metamorphosis of free men into slavery… and we have plenty of slaves in America today, who do their slave masters bidding…

Fast and Furious was a program originated in the Bush administration. If Congress had confirmed an ATF director, maybe that program would have been stopped earlier, or run correctly. While the cat’s away…

I remember the Nazi Revolutionary Army recruiting adult Boy Scout leaders in the ‘60s with the promise they could help kill every black in Dallas, “and those commies in Washington are supplying the ammunition” (referring to the American Marksman program they had with the Pentagon) which they hoarded. The Dallas ghetto didn’t riot, robbing them of the excuse. Now there is an example of their attempted involvement in mass murder. They did, however, help turn the Boy Scouts into the only hate group chartered by Congress.

Obama has endorsed the NRA proposal: armed guardians for innocents. He has asked for money. But, he uses the code word ‘resource’. Rich Liberals spend their money on protection: Gated Communities, body guards, private schools with guardians, special police services, etc. Then, Liberals go after the wrong goal: weapons..How about refocusing on the Mentals that are registered Democrats and teaching ‘value human life’ to our ‘progressive’ children.

Hey Fuzzy: So NO rich Conservatives spend THEIR money on gated communities, private guards, private security? Try getting close to Trump or Rush or Hannity or O’Reilly except in a controlled situation!

I keep hearing that the gun was “found” in the vicinity of agent Terry, but has anyone ever said/proved that it was actually used to kill him?

Probably not, Ima, but some lunatic 15-year-old in New Mexico just shot and killed his parents and siblings with an AR-15. We can add another senseless mass killing to the list of those caused by weapons intended for mass killings.