Nick Anderson for October 02, 2015

The “well-regulated militia” part used to mean exactly that. Like Switzerland, all males (well, free white land-owning males) of a certain age were required by law to serve in local and state militias. These could be and were occasionally federalized. We dropped that with the creation of the National Guard. But I’d be okay bringing it back.

We can’t even be bothered to do background checks on all gun purchases. There is an active gun running trade from Indiana gun shows and private sales into Chicago gangs.

The knee-jerk reaction of FOX News propagandists was to criticize Obama for his early impassioned response and to find numerous reasons why nothing can be done. If 22 beautiful children slaughtered at Sandy Hook won’t move the legislators, I doubt ten college students slaughtered at Roseburg, O. will. The cowardly, self-serving Congress needs to show leadership.

It’s not the cowardly, self-serving congress. It’s the cowardly, self-serving Republicans. They have no right to call themselves “Pro Life.”

The blood is on the hands of the school administration. This loon walked onto a “gun free” campus with one unarmed security guard. Logic and facts would be helpful in this argument, but they seem to fly out the window as the president showed when he claimed gun deaths are higher in states with loose gun laws. the reverse is true. further gun deaths have been declining over the past 20 years. what is up is mass shootings particularly since 2008. Must be obama’s fault by the reasoning on display here. One of the real problems is that we no longer institutionalize mentally ill people, but it is easier to whine about Republicans than actually seek solutions

You’re right! Your post was good for a laugh! Nobody is claiming there is a guarantee of uncontrolled firearms in the constitution. Complete and utter BS exaggeration by you. How do you expect people to take you seriously when you can’t even tell the truth? Second lie is “the ease of buying military grade weaponry”. This shows you either know the truth or are woefully uninformed about what one can buy. Military grade weaponry is fully automatic, which is impossible to get for the vast majority of gun owners. So keep up the BS. It shows how out of touch with reality the gun control nuts are.

“What gun control law would have prevented this? I keep asking this and you all keep running away from it. Why?”How about limits on the number of bullets you can purchase?

Folks, this is getting old. Really old. The right claims mental health is the issue. The left claims gun laws are the issue. Neither is claiming that the CULTURE OF THE UNITED STATES IS THE ISSUE. What kind of country do we live in when a weapon of mass destruction like an AK-47 is oogled over by men? Why are guns cool? Why is this even an issue? People have guns to protect themselves from criminals who have guns. How about instead of trying to limit the guns to criminals who don’t care about laws we try to MAKE FEWER CRIMINALS!

Give people hope, help and jobs. Stop spending an ungodly disproportionate amount of our national budget on army toys. Stop trying to be the world’s police force. Take that money, invest it in AMERICA and see if the gun fatalities decline. Because interest in guns will decline. Raise the education level in America and the interest will switch from killing to living.

In short, America, GROW THE F*(!@ UP! Put away the guns, leave them for the small military we need to protect ourselves, and find something else to play with.

So what’s the big deal?

It’s just another mass shooting. It happens somewhere in the country almost daily.

I mean, there are traffic accidents daily and nobody tries to make things safer there, do they?

People die of food poisoning frequently, and that’s not treated as if it were a public health problem or anything stupid like that, right?

So what’s the big deal?

That tons o’ guns are LEGALLY purchased or aquired by nuts is the result of LIMITATIONS in Brady and other bills written in by NRA backed mostly “conservative” legislators, making stopping these sales difficult to impossible.

Smith and Wesson can keep sales records permanently, and sell them to the NRA, but the government under the law must destroy the record after just five days.

Roseburg hits close to my family, as my daughter was the first female firefighter/paramedic hired in Douglas County, and then a Nurse at Mercy, a lot of her friends still work there, and they know lots of folks in that community.

Douglas County btw is one of the MOST RIGHT-WING COUNTIES IN OREGON!! The shooter was also by all accounts a RIGHT WING extremist in his posts and views, like most in the county, although in their defense, he was a recent acquisition to that area, coming from Southern California’s righter-wing community.

Sensible restrictions CAN be written and still follow the “well regulated” mandate in the Second Amendment, and still maintain access for legitimate, sane, responsible, gun owners.

a person I know believes that it should be a well regulated militia so he incorp a not for profit group [ now he does not have to pay sales tax]

Strange we don’t do background checks for freedom of speech. Let’s just scrap the constitution and go to lunch. Long live GIII

rallsolo:New Zealand licenses gun owners, and they are then pretty free to buy what they want for viable protection, and hunting. Those owners then closely monitor their firearms, don’t lose or get them stolen, or sell them on the black market to criminals. That has a LOT to do with putting responsibilty on gun owners, and greatly reducing crime, and DRASTiCALLY lowering gun crimes.

Passion to homicid therefore is more difficult, but old fashioned means, rock, blade, baseball bat, will steal be used in a pinch of human nature.

There are lots of problems here, so it’s unlikely that there’s one solution. The solution to mass shootings is not likely to be the same as the solution to gang violence. And any one measure is not likely to solve the whole problem. Here’s one suggestion: we should build an economic system which allows everyone to have decent work and a chance to get ahead. That won’t solve everything, but it could make violent crime less attractive.

Here’s another suggestion: everyone has the right to own guns, but the guns are kept under lock and key in some central repository. Any time you want to use your gun, for hunting or target practice or whatever, you have to sign it out and say how long you’re going to use it and then return it, or else you’re in big trouble. And anyone who owns a gun outside of this system is also in big trouble.

Of course my suggestion won’t fly. Here’s what going to happen: Nothing.

Until recently, I really wasn’t for taking away all guns but the continuous killing of kids by a bunch of gun nuts is changing my mind. It worked in Australia and England.