I agree. This may prevent people that could be treated for mental illness from seeking the assistance they need. Hopefully something is included that would allow a person to be deemed "cured" or "treated" so they are not permanently punished for seeking help.

“Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves.” ~ Ronald Reagan

Newest round of firearms laws are a knee jerk reaction to the shootings, without thinking the laws thru. Example NY has a limit of 7 bullets in a gun, they forgot to exempt police.

... I dunno, that just seems crazy to me, pardon the pun. It's making a victim of the victim twice over, ya know what I mean, Vern?

or if she joins the FBI and the FBI gives her a gun...Is the FBI above the law? In other words, do government agency have to check mental health records at every mental health institution before issueing a gun to the agent? Who's vern anyway? I can't find any more post before yours :P

The government is acting as if psychology is a science, when it's anything but. In fact, the field tends to attract crazies.

Furthermore, anger and violent thoughts are not necessarily indicative. I have a lot of anger. I sincerely believe that a large percentage of Congress and at least half of allopathic doctors and anyone above the rank of receptionist at the FDA ought to be... put out to pasture, let us say.

And yet there is zero possibility that I would shoot anyone except in defense from a physical attack. I wouldn't even shoot someone to protect my property.

Most of all, the thought of the government forcing and collecting such testing makes my blood run cold.

Although no one wants to hear this, it really is that people grow up being constantly exposed to hypnotic messages of graphic violence. Anyone who is not already desensitized realizes that there is something dreadfully wrong with watching and hearing a graphic portrayal of a woman being stalked, raped, and brutally murdered while you are eating dinner. Such images would make a normal person disgusted and sick.

I have even visited friends who are watching that kind of trash yet are so desensitized that they actually leave it on in the background while they visit with me. I tell them to shut it off or I will leave.

Children watch this filth on TV, they listen to it described and promoted in the music they fall asleep to, and they practice doing it themselves in video games. As each generation the media becomes more graphically violent, people have less respect for human life—€”even their own.

But individuals howl, "I LOVE murdering people in video games, but I'm not a violent person. I don't even own a gun!" And somehow that seems like a rational rebuttal—at least to the high percentage of the population who is also desensitized.

heres how I describe the mentally unfit to own a gun. 1) If you shot animals just because you like to see them die. I work with "men" who hunt simply because they enjoy killing things, they will shoot anything that moves, in fact they don't even have to have a gun, if they see an animal on the road they will swerve to hit it rather than miss it. Example: Subject A was telling Subject B about a time when he was riding his snowmobile with a friend and they happened upon a coyote. They chased the coyote down and grabbed it by the tail, dragging the howling critter through the snow while the other rider beat it with an iron pipe he carried specifically for that occassion. Then they took turns running over the animal with their snowmobiles until it was a bloodspot in the snow and fur stuck in the tracks. Subject A and Subject B were rolling on the floor laughing at the story of the senseless torture of this animal. NO GUN FOR YOU!!!
2) People who constantly speak of killing people. Example: Subject A goes into a daily rant at work about how if he had his way he would kill every Arab on the planet, as well as every Mexican, every black and even every liberal. NO GUN FOR YOU!!
3) if asked what you would do if you came home and found your wife in bed with another man and you respond by saying you would “shoot him”, NO GUN FOR YOU!!
4) If your favorite comment to nearly every situation where you are offended or humiliated is “I’d shoot him”, then NO GUN FOR YOU.
I think you get where I am going with this, mainly 90% of the people who are gun fanatics would probably not be allowed to own guns in a perfect world because most of them are one shot of whiskey away from killing someone. They are violent, angry, afraid of their own shadow, paranoid and ready to kill at the drop of a hat. Giving the right set of circumstances they will snap and fly off into a jealous or angry rage.

I have nothing against guns per se, what I do have a problem with is people who are afraid of their own shadow owning them. I think we need to give psychological exams to anyone desiring to own a firearm. If the person seems to be the type who will crack under the pressure of life and shoot up a school full of children then he or she should not have access to a gun. If said person appears to be the type who will fly off in a jealous rage when their pride gets wounded then NO GUN FOR YOU. Unfortunately the type of people who DON'T think they need a gun to protect themselves are the type of people who will pass the psychological exam, those who think they need an AR15 with a 30 round clip just to visit the local Ace hardware are the type who would fail such a test.

Xorp

I agree. This may prevent people that could be treated for mental illness from seeking the assistance they need. Hopefully something is included that would allow a person to be deemed "cured" or "treated" so they are not permanently punished for seeking help.

This is the conundrum this whole disaster creates.

How many therapists are going to be willing to deem someone is "cured" or "treated"?

If someone is diagnosed as unstable to own a firearm and then is deemed cured, what happens if that person creates another Aurora, Newtown or just shoots at one person and misses? Who is responsible then, the patient, the therapist or both?

You know in our embarrassingly litigious society the therapist will be dragged through the legal system as being complicit to the crime. After a few hundred such cases, how many therapists will be willing to certify a patient stable to own a firearm? How much will the malpractice insurance go up on each and every psychiatrist, psychologist and mental health therapist? All this cost will trickle down to each and every one of us. Will that added cost guarantee societies safety?

Predicting human behavior is impossible. Predicting violence is even more unpredictable.

You are so correct JimSpence.

Lets face it !!!!

The biggest responsibility for the weapons falls on the owner. The weapons should have trigger locks on them. Also should be stored in a safe with a combo lock and only the owner knows the combo. Those two things alone will cut down on some of the gun deaths. Granted this is not fool proof but is at least a start. As for background checks . I am all for it. Mental health issues are a can of worms for sure. But should be looked into anyway. The sale of weapons at gun shows should be looked at also. The buyer should provide a valid license or carry permit to purchase a weapon at the show or submit to a background check at that time in all states. These suggestions are a better starting point than doing nothing or blowing smoke to make the public feel good.

The thing is, mental health IS the issue-along with the frustration and anger that's so prevalent in this country today-ignore it and you ignore the problem. No one of sound mind walks into a school, movie theater or any other public place and starts shooting everyone in sight. Without addressing this aspect, all the bans on specific guns, clips, ammo etc. are nothing but feel-good legislation-they will not stop anybody from obtaining what they need to do whatever they set out to do.

is anyone feeling "safe" about these proposals? is this where we want our country to go? how many people will be infringed on by this "crazy" proposal? MOST of our gun violence is gang related and yet we choose NOT TO ADDRESS THAT? i think crazy people should not have guns,are we going to leave it up to a doctor( i use that term lightly),that most of the time makes improper diagnoses and drugs the patient,rather then come up with some reliable form of TAKING CARE of the patients problem(they drugged my daughter,when ALL that was needed was stability at her moms,and punishment when due) she is now "back to normal behavior" because she is being disciplined equally at BOTH PLACES.these guys are NOT QUALIFIED to tie my SHOES! and they should have the ability to do what? stupid proposal at best!

It is such a load of malarkey!!! Before any of this assault weapon turmoil began, therapists AND priests were suppose to report ANY activity or threatening information to the police if it were a point NOT of what had already been done, but if someone was in danger from the confessor or patient. Now its a big deal that someone needing mental health care might not seek it because THEY MIGHT TAKE MY GUN AWAY?????

Give us a break! Anyone seeking help from a professional that might harm themselves or harm others NEED for their guns to be taken away!. It should be one of the first questions they should ask..."Alright, now that we have cleared that hurdle, we are on a far more comfortable path towards a healthy recovery but first let me ask...DO YOU OWN A FIREARM????"

Need I say more. I am not trying to act harsh or callous. We need to be smart and common sense mature about the matter and take their little toys away from them, okay?

It seems nowadays when we try to resolve,when we seek to solve, when we work finally towards a common ground to fix the nation's problems, we got a TON of freaks coming out of the woodwork who are far left or right extremists declaring some unseen unacknowledged truth to proclaim as important news. They DO love their soapboxes don't they.

is anyone feeling "safe" about these proposals?

Nope.

MOST of our gun violence is gang related and yet we choose NOT TO ADDRESS THAT?

It's because drugs are too lucrative.

i think crazy people should not have guns,are we going to leave it up to a doctor( i use that term lightly),that most of the time makes improper diagnoses and drugs the patient,rather then come up with some reliable form of TAKING CARE of the patients problem

Which begs the question: how are we going to come up with the money for this? I agree that each patient should be evaluated and treated on a case by case basis, but our mental health care system is in shambles.

The main issue is not the people who are mentally ill, its the services available. Due to budget cuts, state and federal funding, local mental health facilities are faced with a daunting rising issue. Many professionals have retorted to over medicating everyone who walks in.. with issues. drugs dont fix, they cover up, and in many cases the drugs used to treat are so toxic to the human body and after years of taking these, the person is no better off, than if he / she had not used them.

The shooter @ the Batman screening, while he is as goofy as a 3 dollar bill now, was not crazy when he entered college. There always has been a fine line where brilliant and crazy are. If laws are meant to keep the disabled away from owning a gun.. This person in 10-15 years is no longer considered disabled.. yet he can not own a gun, or tazer or even purchase pepper spray to protect himself / herself. one could construe he / she is being discriminated against.

Mental health professionals.. there isnt enough real mental facilities to house the mentally ill that do really need help. In my state, the Oregon State Hospital was closed, forcing many to rely upon the legal system to help house and treat them. We have dumped them on the streets and forced them to make do with nothing.

Jeez...If this happens, therapists may be looking for a new job for the fear of knowingly saying someone is mental, they take guns away and next visit, the person stabs/chokes/beats their therapist....Hey, could happen as the mentally unstable person could flip out on them b/c they think the therapist is against them. I do know how the "You are against me!" thing is as one of best friends is a Bi-polar Schizophrenic. He says that I'm a better person to talk to than his therapist! Granted, I may not know the technical terms for things or a degree but someone that you KNOW and TRUST to CONFIDE in is a real reliever. I tell you, if he said he wanted to harm someone, I would and will talk him out of it. Have many times. This scenario COULD happen...ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE IN THIS WORLD ANYMORE!! ITS BEEN PROVEN!!

Wayne LaPierre, CEO of the NRA, evaded the Vietnam draft in 1969 by having his family doctor write a letter saying he had a nervous disorder.

Does a nervous disorder classify as mental illness?

Does this mean that Mr. LaPierre cannot legally buy or own a gun?

YOU PEOPLE AMAZE ME !!!!

Go back to my posting #1-9.

You are quick to place blame on others and yell and scream about new laws or ideas for new regulation. None of you , not a one have said yes we must better secure our weapons, to prevent theft and or misuse by others. The mass murderer will always remain hard to find or stop, let alone prevent them from committing that crime. What I am saying is to prevent accidents in the home and little kids getting hold of those weapons. All to often we hear about kids bringing guns to school, shooting a friend or sibling in the home. These things are preventable only if the owner of those weapons takes their responsibility seriously and does the correct thing.

Anyone who wishes to ban large soda's has a mental issue and would not pass a psychological exam.

What about equality? Shouldn't every person in America take a test to prove their sane once a year, you never know they could have a weapon in their hand at any moment.

If mental facilities worked and they could tell the unhinged from the hinged then that would be a valid argument. However, it has been proven time and time again psychological impaired individuals are misdiagnosed frequently. These are persons who have committed heinous acts and been released to do it again. Drug induced mayhem will continue and there is no remedy for that being talked about. P.S. Didn't all of these persons have some type of usage of drugs? Yes,Yes they did.

Repeating my comment from 3 days ago, after we learned of the new gun control proposals:

The main effect of background checks will be to unjustly prevent law abiding citizens from getting guns (most people have done something stupid at some point in their life), and it will prevent people from seeking treatment for their mental or psychological issues (as it would show on their background check). It will not prevent any future mass murders, as most of them were perpetrated by people who had never committed a crime before.

I also mentioned in another post that this is exacty the opposite of what we need (people not seeking treatment).

I don't believe that every member of the NRA is paranoid delusional. There are many responsible gun owners in America, including in my own family.

But, it does seem that a significant number of NRA members suffer from some sort of extreme paranoia about "the government is out to get us" or "you can't trust the police."

People with these nervous mental disorders should not be able to obtain weapons of any kind, and most definitely not assault weapons.

Unfortunately, these sick individuals are being encouraged and whipped into a greater frenzy by the NRA itself.

JimSpence-#1.2

“Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves.” ~ Ronald Reagan

Yeah Jim, and in the end, Ronnie needed Nancy to protect him from himself... and he was still President with his finger on the biggest GUN of all.

You might wanna find someone a little saner to quote next time!

bill: and others that imply muskets were the only thing available when amendment was written have failed to portray history correctly. They did have high capacity weapons and could own explosives.

bob1/28,

Gee, you must not have been on the Vine very long if you think nobody has ever posted about securing personal weapons.

Numerous people have posted and continue to post their beliefs that gun owners should be required to be held accountable for the safekeeping of their own weapons to keep them out of the hands of criminals, mentally ill folks, and children too.

Jim Spence,

Another thing that was scary about Reagan's second term was that his wife, Nancy, was consulting astrologers to make important decisions in the White House since Reagan was not mentally astute enough to make those calls. Very scary!

Deprogrammer...you've just described 80% of the u.s. male population with your last two examples....

Silverton....Just because your sheeple, doesn't mean the rest of us are or want to be.

As for those who want to test everyone, how many so called "normal" people would pass a test? just about everyone has made a violent statement at one time or another, If we start looking into background of everyone to see if they have violent behavior, you'd have to excluded 99% of population, just go to football game sometime and listen to crowd, how many of us have yelled out "hit the bast--rd harder"' or "knock em on his a$$", or I'm going deer hunting tomorrow and kill that big s.o.b. buck??? where do you draw line?

The NRA isn't whipping us into a frenzy, the left wing media and politicians are, how many of you liberal posters weren't in a "frenzy" when ol GWB was presidente'??

Once they get you on a list good luck getting off.. Look at all the people that got on no fly lists just because their name is similar to someone else's that was put on it because he got into an argument with his or her ex and should not have been on the list to begin with.. It happens all the time and they forgot to include that mechanism of review and reversal maybe on purpose.. They seem to want you to fear the mentally ill as a threat to society so much that you start to see this illness in everyone around you.. Quick call the police and report what that person might have said in a moment of anger even though they will never carry out said action so the government can add him to their list..

Hitler did this with the Jews and mentally ill..

We are almost to the police state that was Nazi Germany.. Giving up freedoms for imaginary safety from bad people.. The Federal government has been trumpeting this for years but the truth is they can't do a damn thing against a motivated individual.. Have you ever noticed all their solutions take away just a bit more of your freedom and always come after a tragedy, some almost too fantastic to believe..

silverton-2953905

But, it does seem that a significant number of NRA members suffer from some sort of extreme paranoia about "the government is out to get us" or "you can't trust the police."

lol come on now, they just want to make sure we keep the right to bear arms. Are you sure you are not the one who suffers of some type of "NRA members" or "gun owners" paranoia?

And you keep harping on LaPierre, maybe you should get over it. First of all you don't know anything about what was happening in his life at that time, and everyone has a past, including each of our Presidents, they all did things they are not especially proud of and/or that people wouldn't necessarily like much, but yet they were/are still President and Commander in Chief (even when they have no experience whatsoever in the military). Bush used to drink, Obama used to smoke pot and hang out with marxists, Clinton "didn't" have sex with Monica, etc. That's life, sometimes people are going through a rough patch, and/or they make mistakes.

Anna,

Sure everyone has had problems in their past. But, since it is now the present, and Mr. LaPierre is touting more guns for everyone and less gun laws, and he wishes to make mental illness a bigger issue, then it is only relevent to inquire about his own mental health now.

Perhaps his nervous order was only cowardice and an excuse to avoid serving his country in war.

But, what if it truly is a mental illness? Shouldn't that be addressed if he is encouraging people to arm themselves with more assault weapons?

1. New Yorkers deserve what they get when they elect someone like Cuomo. He has a record of over-reacting and taking rights away in the name of "the Public good." Thank God the majority of other States have not made the same mistake.

2. Did you ever think therapists are part of the problem? Between HIPPA laws and their left-leaning education, how can you trust them?

3. You do realize you can't legislate away all risk? Especially where we live in a Society that is increasingly abandoning the principles that were important to our Ancestors. The current alternative, unfortunately, is not better than what we had. Yet, most have no clue what they've lost.

On the one hand, I'm interested in seeing the impact of Cuomo's strong arm tactics, on the other, I have no wish to follow this, or be lied to by the Main stream Media. It is time they stop "opinion news" and go back to actually telling the truth. A stretch, I know, but it needs to be done.

A sixteen-year-old victim of abuse talks to a school psychologist because she feels suicidal. The doctor reports this to the State, and she is uploaded into a database prohibiting her from buying a gun in the future (she cannot buy one yet anyway due to her age, but she could buy one when she turns eighteen.). Ten years later, at 26 years old, she is no longer depressed, no longer suicidal, has fully recovered from the abuse, and is a healthy, productive member of society. Now she can't buy a gun because... well, she has "a history of mental illness"?

F**K YES AND THEN MORE

Cuomo did not only what NRA *ssh*l*s hate, but what the left won't do, which is address the mental health issue side of it. Yeah, fear of implementation is an excuse for not making a law that makes sense? SINCE WHEN?

Seriously. Mental health professionals are making the usual poor excuses for not doing their jobs. Just like a gun store owner who doesn't want to take the blame for selling a gun to a 17 year old, but happily took their money.

When the idiot faux left realize they are just as much problem as the dope extremist righties, maybe we can start getting somewhere.

If we just get rid of the assault fire power on store shelves we wouldn't be in this pickle, hey, Vern.

How many "CRAZY" police are running around out there?

Yet they are better armed than we were in Iraq!?!?!

Calling someone crazy is like calling someone a "Witch" from the days of Salem. *Read Witch trials*

willowbrook,

I do agree about the media, and think it is important to get one's information from a variety of news sources and not rely on just one, and also to be aware when a media source is leaning too far left or right.

I used to love listening to National Public Radio (NPR) but have almost stopped listening to it because it caters now to the extreme liberal fringe in all its news and programs.

And Fox News is absurd in its bias against President Obama, Democrats, and anything that does not conform to its fanatical right-wing views.

But, I think as long as one is aware that these newbroadcasters are biased, then you can more easily discern the truth.

Now she can't buy a gun because... well, she has "a history of mental illness"?

There are other ways to defend yourself.

1. Avoiding dangerous situations.

2. Choosing your peers carefully.

3. Karate, stun guns, pepper spray.

Involuntary commitments should probably never be able to buy a gun. People with a history of mental illness who have never been involuntarily committed should be evaluated by more than one psychologist that is licensed the the ATF to determine the person is safe to carry.

jujubefruit

... I dunno, that just seems crazy to me, pardon the pun. It's making a victim of the victim twice over, ya know what I mean, Vern?

or if she joins the FBI and the FBI gives her a gun...Is the FBI above the law? In other words, do government agency have to check mental health records at every mental health institution before issueing a gun to the agent? Who's vern anyway? I can't find any more post before yours :P

If you don't pass the mental health part they most likely wouldn't let you in the FBI ;)

Vern is the friend of Ernest P. Worrell (Jim Varney) he was this silly character from some old movies for example: Ernest Goes to Jail: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099512/

im not pro giving guns to crazy people or violent felons but seriously our 2nd amendment prohibits laws from being passed that restrict your ability to own a weapon. all these laws being passed are blatently unconstitutional. the constitution says everyone has a right to own a weapon. if you want them restricted from certain groups (violent felons, crazies, etc) then an amendment needs to be passsed

I just want to know why we have a "knee Jerk" government....holy cow can someone give the entire area of DC some sort of mood stabilizers....they need them more than anyone on this planet...sheshhh, if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it probably needs *Xanax.

*xanax-Alprazolam is used to treat anxiety and panic disorders.

and just in case they take me up on this here is some additional information:

http://www.webmd.com/drugs/drug-9824-Xanax+Oral.aspx?drugid=9824&drugname=Xanax+Oral

What is going on is it is being quickly revealed who wants to solve the problem, and the morons of the left and right who don't. Morons who think they represent the left only want guns to be addressed and morons who think they represent the right only want other issues to be addressed.

And then when something is done to fix both parts of the problem, the morons get up in arms. Because the world doesn't fit their totally lopsided view of it.

I am so glad that there is huge crying over mental health issues being addressed, like there was huge crying over addressing gun laws. The huge crying means something is being done correctly.

FluffyBunny's

The main issue is not the people who are mentally ill, its the services available. Due to budget cuts, state and federal funding, local mental health facilities are faced with a daunting rising issue. Many professionals have retorted to over medicating everyone who walks in.. with issues. drugs dont fix, they cover up, and in many cases the drugs used to treat are so toxic to the human body and after years of taking these, the person is no better off, than if he / she had not used them.

Spot on this is what I was going to say too. Not to mention that most of these drugs the side affects happen to be "may cause suicidal thoughts/actions" Our mental health system is too messed up for any of these new "laws" to be effective, until we fix this part we're just p*ssing in the wind.

All you people throwing out all these percentages and numbers, just remember, about 67% of all statistics are made up.

The amazing thing about all this propaganda war from both sides of the aisle is that none of them have enough knowledge of their own history to even know why the Second Amendment exists.

During the time of the War of Colonial Rebellion, Mad Georgie decreed that none of the colonists could own weapons. That edict was intended to make it easier for his royal troops to come in and threaten the poor dumb colonials with the might of the most powerful land army on earth.

Fast forward a few years, and we see Jimmy and Tommy writing up a paper on how different our new government should be from Grand old England. They put a bit in there about us being able to own weapons, intending to make sure that we would be able to defend ourselves from an ARMY. Key concept there. People ought to read more about Tommy and Jimmy. People think they know about them, but they don't, really.

All the right-wing NRA nutjobs seem to think this second little bit in the paper that Jimmy and Tommy were writing, meant that we should be able to protect ourselves from our own government. This should demonstrate that any political group afraid of its own government should never be allowed to run said government. I think it ought to have been made a little clearer that the slips of paper we used to punch holes in were the means they intended us to use to protect ourselves from our own government, but somehow they thought folks would exercise a little thought. Oh well.

All the left-wing nutjobs want to take all the weapons away. Well, there's problems with that too. When there is no one left capable of defending themselves, the criminals and those who think they're outside the law come in and bully their way into control of the masses.

Anyone with a reasonable amount of education and knowledge of the socio-political conditions of the late 18th Century, should immediately grasp the simple fact that a modern assault rifle has absolutely no reason to exist outside an army base. If you want, need, or require a weapon, it should only be one that enables you to defend your life from someone who is intent on taking it. A modern semi-automatic, or automatic assault rifle is just overkill, and an ego-booster for those Hee-Haw types. You know, the ones with the little plastic racks in the back of their pickup trucks with the giant tires, where one needs an extension ladder to climb in?

Regretfully, it would appear that common sense (Thank you, Mr. Paine) died a silent, and quick death right about the time that divisive politics a la Atwater came into existence.

I'm just amazed that no one really knows this nation's history.

Mornin Silverton!!

You wrote;

But, it does seem that a significant number of NRA members suffer from some sort of extreme paranoia about "the government is out to get us" or "you can't trust the police."

Can you please post a link to that study? The likelyhood that..... "a significant number of NRA members suffer from some sort of extreme paranoia about "the government is out to get us" or "you can't trust the police.".,

......and proof of this would be a good read too!

"Unfortunately, these sick individuals are being encouraged and whipped into a greater frenzy by the NRA itself."

What is YOUR kind of whipping?

And as I've asked you in another thread, but you never got back on that. I am not a NRA member.

I would just like to read it.

For you convenience a reminder;

Silverton-

Hey there! So we meet again!

Can you please provide a truthful link to your source of information that you posted about Wayne La Pierre? The actual nervous contition, its diagnosis and prognosis etc? I'm not an NRA member, I'm just interested in reading it. You post many things yet don't offer any sources. My brothers wife died of Huntington's Chorea, and although a disease deteriorating the central nervous system in the brain, she still had her faculties.

Thanks kid!

Also.. Does it also qualify as a nervous disorder when someone posts untruths repeatedly, hoping eventually that they will come true? Perhaps they shouldn't have the right to free speech as well don't you agree?

Thanks kid!

Violence is consequence of our environment, starting with dysfunctional families, parents that don't care about their kids, individuals who live their own little world, kids that demand their "own privacy" , parents divorced, single mothers, no responsibility, violent games, movies. Why we have to wait for another Lanza. Guns do not promote violence, guns save lives but kill in the wrong hands. All those measures of gun control are useless if we has a society do not change.

@ Lusitiania, you do realize the term "assault rifle" is a made up term? Those weapons that look like a miltary weapon are regular rifles dressed up to look like a military weapon.... These weapons do not work any different than the traditional rifle. So many Americans need to get informed about what is really out there. The truly dangerous weapons are already banned.

Silverton

your love for CNN , MSNBC , Anderson Cooper , Blitzer , Madcow , Matthews and the rest of the leftist liberal ilk is evident and just a stupid as you say Fox is , and your tendency to copy and paste your own posts over and over and over again is a pretty clear indication of mental instability , have you had a "examination" lately? ,you may be to unstable to buy or own a keyboard , I'm just sayin'

To the moron who claimed that 96% of the violent criminals in prison are liberal democrats you have that backwards. Liberal democrats are in prison for non-violent crimes like smoking pot where as your average trailer park republican meth head is in there for committing violent acts: wife beating (a large percentage of your domestic violence cases are from conservatives who think women should be subeserviant to men), hate crimes (the only ones liberals hate are conservatives while conservatives hate everybody and notoriously commit most of the hate crimes in the US), assualt (hang out in a liberl yuppy bar and you wont see one fight but go to a redneck conservative bar and you will see a fight every 15 minutes, I bounced at the Cowboy Bar in Laramie Wyoming and we served everything in plastic glasses due to the violent idiots who frequented the bar), Gun violence (I have never had a so called tree hugging liberal pull a gun on me or threaten to pull a gun on me yet I have had 3 guns pulled on me in my life, each time it was by a fine upstanding conservative who got his pride wounded and wasn't man enough to face me without a gun).

I recently spent time in our county jail for cultivation of marijuana, I was the only one you could truly call a liberal democrat, everyone else was a violent meth head trailer trash conservative and I know this because they forced us to watch Fox Noise the whole time I was in their and the neanderthals whom I was housed with were screaming racial slurs at the TV everytime helmet head Hannity would mention President Obamas name. Out of 100 men in jail I was the only liberal in there and the only one in there for a victimless crime, the rest, the trailer park republicans, were in there for DUI's assault, weapons discharge, meth distribtion, domestic violenece, theft etc.

how do you know if or when someone is harmful? See I am homeless staying the nights at my a friends house, he has a roommate, both in the military. The other roommate scares me...he is not the kind of person that people like, he talks over you two syllables into a sentence, and never says anything intelligent. he spends his days getting fired from his jobs, plays on facebook all day long non-stop...has his hands down his pants while the dogs (owner is other roommate)are sitting on his pelvis area...weird...but it goes on, he watches murders all day long, he never changes the channel from the "solved" "psycho next door" discovery crime shows...all day long!! I feel like he is planning something...that if I make him made he will poison me or something...he has a gun, in the house right now.....

to me this person should have never even been able to join the military, he is clearly distrubed and has no friends, no one like him, he cant hold a job....and what do i do other than sit here, with the only roof I can find, and watch this guy act out on someone some day...

this is not the kind of person you can say, hey maybe you should see a dr...he wouldn't even let me get those words out before he mumbles something and then acts like he has something really important to get to and dashes out of the room....like i said, this guy talks over everyone, wont listen to a single words, take no suggestions or directions, has been kick out of the navy for being gross and then the national guard takes him in....and he sits here with his gun...the only question is, is he going to use it, when.

Now, if I had a number to call in and report this, I would, but how do i prove he is a danger just because he acts like a freak....you cant just say, hey mr police man, this guy is a freak, he scares me, help....Now i task mr fix all Obama to come up with a solution to my problem...since he has an answer for everything that ails us

Jim,

If you have questions about Mr. LaPierre's nervous disorder, then perhaps you should google it.

There are numerous links and pages of info. Easy to find with the click of a mouse.

deprogrammer,

Thanks for your post. Personally, I do not "surf the coal reefer," but I found your post to be the most interesting and enlightening one I have read in days.

Judging by the gun-lovers responses at least 90% of them are too angry to own a gun

deprogrammer,

Sorry, I meant "surf the coral reefer." LOL

What about the violent nature of the government in GITMO????
What about the violent nature of law makers placing the majority of African Americans in Jail.

What about the violent nature of Law Makers declaring that if fathers can't keep up with the $50 a month child support payments required by law even if they don't have a means of income in this no job society, should be locked away?

What about the violent nature of the leaders who drop bombs on innocent civilians in other countries.
they should be classified as mentally ill if they can't come to some sort of non-violent means of settling issues.

When government or laws are abusive and people's freedom are at risk, sometimes the threat of violence is the only way to maintain the respect.

It's like over there in Mali right now, where the French wants to keep their money machine in tact they shouldn't have guns either because they want to use them in order to continue to take money and resources from that region.

If citizens give up their guns then government officials must give up their weapon arsenal!!!!

I don't believe in killing but, it is my belief that the government's plan is to disarm the people until they can have computer based weapons that have the ability to eliminate the manpower needed to force individuals to do their bidding.
Currently, soldiers and law enforcement keep the human element within situations like this and have the ability to say no to government demands involving forcing citizens and individuals to do their bidding.

The government isn't saying take away the guns from the Assad Regime who clearly has mental issues.
The government isn't talking about eliminating its Nuclear Weapon Arsenal that can kill us all.
This clearly shows that even government officials have mental issues and are thinking about harming others on a massive scale.

So, I completely disagree with the way that they are handling this and believe that all areas need review before only targeting citizens.

PEEL LAYER...

There's no end to crazy; the very people who presume to counsel others (shrinks and preachers ) are themselves oft poorly wrapt.

wryobserver,

Well said!

Here's a common sense method to determine where mental health evaluations should be provided... a panel of mental health professionals review and make recommendations based on the comments to this article! The commenter that sound relatively reasonable can have a gun. Those spouting nonsense and that seem particularly aggressive will be referred to undergo further evaluation.

In the spirit of fairness we'll make sure half the panel are liberal and the other half are conservative... no guns allowed in the room while they figure out who is and isn't fit to own a gun. And don't be mistaken, that's not a slam on mental health professionals, just commentary on the hostility towards others who have differing political views.

Simply scanning this (and other gun-related) thread reveals several excellent candidates for ongoing anger management counseling - if not institutionalization.

Caps, bold, multiple exclamation marks, multiple question marks. Threats of civil war, bragadoccio about personal arsenals and their intended use. Challenges for personal confrontation. For these folks, a difference of opinion is much more - it's a war against absolute right and absolute wrong.

Some people react to any and all of even the slightest disappointments with rage. Don't they notice? I've personally met a few like this - most people avoid contact with them, for obvious reasons.

willowbrook

You are a little off base there.

The two main differences between the military assault weapon and the civilian one.

#1- the ammo ( bullet ) is different

#2- the cycle rate of fire ( how many rounds it puts out )

#3- the safety selector switch ( civilian models have safety and semi operation military gas safety- semi and full rock&roll.

Each uses the same auto load and eject mechanism. If one is skilled . They can easily turn a semi auto into a full automatic. Illegal as all hell but don't think for a moment that it has not already been done.

glimmerer and SDN,

I agree. This should be a forum of discussion and not hostility.

John Athondoe,

Please watch your labels. I have been called a teabagger and a bleeding liberal on the same day on the Vine. I don't think I fit into your neat little box.

silverton-2953905

Anna,

Sure everyone has had problems in their past. But, since it is now the present, and Mr. LaPierre is touting more guns for everyone and less gun laws, and he wishes to make mental illness a bigger issue, then it is only relevent to inquire about his own mental health now.

As you mentioned, we are talking about the present, while you keep referring to something that happened over 40 years ago. Did you not get my point about the Presidents? When you are Commander in Chief you are "touting" a lot more then one gun, despite your past, even if you have no experience in the military (and I am not referring specifically to Obama here, he is not the only President who has never served in the military).

Perhaps his nervous order was only cowardice and an excuse to avoid serving his country in war.

Perhaps. Then again neither of us knows what type of nervous disorder we are talking about, it could have been anything, maybe he was just very nervous/anxious when he was younger (he was 21 in 1969), or maybe he went through a traumatizing event, or maybe he was depressive, or maybe his parents set up this whole thing because they didn't want their son to go to war, I have no idea. Maybe what he did was the right thing to do at the time. A lot of people were against the war in Vietnam, maybe he was one of them, who knows. I know a Vietnam Vet, in fact he is the one who married my husband and I, and the way people treat Vietnam Vets sometimes is pretty disgusting, I bet if LaPierre had been to Vietnam people would use that against him just as much.

But, what if it truly is a mental illness? Shouldn't that be addressed if he is encouraging people to arm themselves with more assault weapons?

Not really, because as I just said, we don't even know what this "nervous disorder" was, and because people own guns when they want to, not because NRA told them to. If you don't like guns, or are afraid of them, there is nothing anyone could say that would convince you to buy one. Either way tho, I think what is dangerous is to believe in myths (i.e. especially those 2: criminals follow the rules and a gun-free zone is safe) and rely on wishful thinking for your protection. The President knows better, he doesn't believe in myths and doesn't rely on wishful thinking for his protection.

It doesn't take a mental health expert to identify truly disturbed individuals but it seems that soon any quack mental health "expert" can label you "unfit to own a gun". Is there potential for abuse? One need only look back to the industry's past promotion of "wonder therapies" like electro-shock therapy and lobotomies to cure the "mentally ill". Then there were those instances of convenient institutionalization where for a price you could have someone committed and "treated" by the best doctors money could buy, a fate imposed on President John F. Kennedy's mildly retarded sister Rosemary for example:

In 1941, when Rosemary was 23, doctors told her father that a new procedure, lobotomy, would help calm her mood swings. At the time, relatively few lobotomies had been performed; James W. Watts, who carried out the procedure with Walter Freeman, described what happened:

"We went through the top of the head, I think she was awake. She had a mild tranquilizer. I made a surgical incision in the brain through the skull. It was near the front. It was on both sides. We just made a small incision, no more than an inch." The instrument Dr. Watts used looked like a butter knife. He swung it up and down to cut brain tissue. "We put an instrument inside," he said. As Dr. Watts cut, Dr. Freeman put questions to Rosemary. For example, he asked her to recite the Lord's Prayer or sing "God Bless America" or count backwards. ... "We made an estimate on how far to cut based on how she responded." ... When she began to become incoherent, they stopped." Instead of the hoped-for result, Rosemary was left with urinary incontinence and an infantile mentality — staring blankly at walls for hours. Her speech became unintelligible.

I know the premise in "Minority Report" might be fascinating to an arrogant few. I would remind them however, that it was only a movie.

The concerns of these mental health experts are well founded. Using any and all means to circumvent the 2nd amendment, the socialistic gun grabbers would lower the bar so low as to render even the most minor condition or diagnosis as reason for denying gun ownership.

Their goal is total disarmament of the people any way they can, since they consider the end justifies the means. They regularly exploit any incident or tragedy and use it as cover for their true agenda. For proof of this, one need only examine their anti gun proposals to see that they would impact the 99.9% of law abiding gun owners while doing nothing to address crime or any incidents they're using as a cover.

My understanding is that the federal database is supposed to only apply to persons who have been adjudicated, which will not happen in the case of a person who receives mental health treatment voluntarily (including under pressure by family members). If a patient states clear threats against other people, that has to be reported--but I believe threats of suicide stay within the mental health system unless the person is refusing treatment and referred to the courts for adjudication. Not to say that even if all works as intended it would be a perfect system, but that sounds like a reasonable balance of interests. It was recently reported, however, that in my own state, out of some 1400 court dispositions pertaining to mental competency only one has been submitted to the federal database. I'm sure quite a few of these involve elderly people or victims of, say, severe brain damage, in nursing homes or otherwise under significant care and supervision. Presumably no compelling need to report these but on the other hand no harm done by the reporting.

bob1/28

YOU PEOPLE AMAZE ME !!!!

Go back to my posting #1-9.

You are quick to place blame on others and yell and scream about new laws or ideas for new regulation. None of you , not a one have said yes we must better secure our weapons, to prevent theft and or misuse by others. The mass murderer will always remain hard to find or stop, let alone prevent them from committing that crime. What I am saying is to prevent accidents in the home and little kids getting hold of those weapons. All to often we hear about kids bringing guns to school, shooting a friend or sibling in the home. These things are preventable only if the owner of those weapons takes their responsibility seriously and does the correct thing.

When I bought my Colt M4 carbine, I soon bought a large gun safe to secure it. It is much more powerful than my handguns and there is no way I want someone to be able to steal it. I don't want anyone stealing any of my firearms, plain and simple. That safe took a tremendous amount of muscle to move from the trailer into the house.

Responsible gun owners ARE out there, like me, and we aren't crazed lunatics like many against guns like to believe.

hydrothunder

im not pro giving guns to crazy people or violent felons but seriously our 2nd amendment prohibits laws from being passed that restrict your ability to own a weapon. all these laws being passed are blatently unconstitutional. the constitution says everyone has a right to own a weapon. if you want them restricted from certain groups (violent felons, crazies, etc) then an amendment needs to be passsed

maybe you should read the 2nd amendment. i clearly uses the words "well regulated" thus the supreme court has rightly ruled that some regulation is not only legal but needed

The only way this would work is, first of all, that the doctor treating the patient be relieved of any responsibility, other than follow-up reports, after reporting an incident. Otherwise, there will be no doctors willing to take a chance of reprisals from the patient or any party involving the patient. This way will prevent any malpractice insurance increases.

We must also remember that there's a fine-line between mentally ill and just plain old meanness.

Silverton- Wrote

Jim,

If you have questions about Mr. LaPierre's nervous disorder, then perhaps you should google it.

There are numerous links and pages of info. Easy to find with the click of a mouse.

deprogrammer,

I'll take that as a "NO" I didn't think so.

Also.. Does it also qualify as a nervous disorder when someone posts untruths repeatedly, hoping eventually that they will come true? Perhaps they shouldn't have the right to free speech as well don't you agree?

Thanks for your post.

My pleasure!

Personally, I do not "surf the coal reefer

Somehow I think "THAT" is untrue as well. I'll bet you're into SOME kind of reefer!

" but I found your post to be the most interesting and enlightening one I have read in days.

You're too kind. Well..., like I said my newest friend.. stick around, I have plenty more if you're willing to listen. What I don't know, rest assure I'll say so, and I wont post a bunch of nonsense just to fill your head with the same, just to have somthing to say. That's not a good sign. Got to run.. taking the granddaughter to the range. Have a great day!

Jim

Ask for a police state and it shall be granted.

@ bob, I am well aware weapons can be modified. I'm talking about the gun as it is sold from the manufacturer. I also know that there are those who own weapons that are currently banned. Oddly enough, those are not the weapons being used in these recent crimes. The definition "assualt weapon" and the huge variety of definitions being thrown out there, mostly by the uninformed, is the problem I'm identifying. Honestly, this is not the REAL problem. Banning "assault weapons" will not stop the killings. We need to identify those who would do these acts. This is not a task that could ever be 100% successful, but at least we can at least address the problem, not a thing. We could ban all guns and the killing would still continue, another method would be used. Prime example, China. They ban guns and now the killings are with knives. Taking away the guns didn't stop the killing.

Welcome to all you crybabies, to your new Socialist life here in the good old USS of A. You voted this clown in for a second term, and the first thing a Socialist government does is get control of the news paper and TV news, the second is government control of your health care, the third is government control of your guns until there is no more because you don't have the guts to shoot the first SOB that tries to take it away from you. the fourth is your right to free speech this is the lat thing due to 90% of you are willing to in-brace SOCIALISM. So enjoy you new found government system were government doe's every thing for you and all you had to do is give up your rights as Americans. it's only 4 of them you'll live with out them have no fear.

2q: You are not the people I'm concerned with. Responsible gun owners/users are just that; responsible. How can I reasonably not respect you and your right to own a weapon. No problem. I'm concerned with people like....isn't it entirely too obvious?

The idea that all of us must carry weapons to defend ourselves against every sadist, paranoid, profoundly angry member of our society results in what? More weapons, more deaths, more suffering. How safe are we if all of us are armed all of the time - including sociopaths?

I've said it before. The more guns there are, the more guns with be in the hands of:

Responsible gun owners

Irresponsible gun owners

Criminals

Sociopaths

Jim,

As I have mentioned before, you may want to slow down and read other people's posts and not just skim over them.

I was not complimenting you on your post, I was addressing the poster named "deprogrammer."

This is a very slippery slope that I am not sure we want to go down... Sort of reminds me of the futuristic Tom Cruise movie a few years ago where people were punished for their crimes before they actually committed them (crimes were seen by a "pre-crime" unit using psychics).

I see this as a loophole where the government could very easily start punishing people not for what they actually do, but for what some doctor THINKS they could do. And the potential for abuse here is incredible. All you have to do is get a corrupt government to declare that conservatism, for example, is an "abnormal" condition and now you have a free pass to take guns away from all conservatives. This is a slippery slope of freedom to be lost.

All of the above excellent posts show the irrationality (and thoughtless irresponsibility) of those who want to make "simple" or even "sweeping" reforms to gun ownership rights of others. As well stated above in other posts, such laws would have to require that either (1) anyone and everyone who has ever been treated for a "mental" issue/problem (currently well over 25 million Americans) will be manditorally placed in the database (e.g., Ever been prescribed an anti-depressant by a doctor? -- You'll be in the datbase! Ever had sessions with a psychiatrist or psychologist? -- You'll be in the database!, etc, etc) OR each professional in mental health would be legally mandated to render a "judgement call" on whether or not to upload any given treated person into the database.

What do you think (""I smell lawsuit.") trial lawyers would do to a health care professional who fails to report a patient, any patient, who eventually brandishes or uses a gun in some way that results in injury (either real perceived) to another person? A few successful civil lawsuits (or worse, criminal prosecution of mental health professionals by the government) and EVERY health care professional will quickly see that they best upload the name of EVERY person they treat into the database, or face potential personal ruin themselves.

By the way, would every gun dealer, or any private citizen seeking to sell a gun, have access to the database? Now that would present some interesting possibilities for people being smeared or their lives being ruined, wouldn't it?

"Simple" gun ownership reforms through new legislation?? There's no such thing. The unintended consequence of the "simple" reforms being touted in the media would be horrendous.

Any law enacted from shear emotions and knee jerk reactions will always be bad laws. History has shown this time and time again. We will now see shortcomings from abuse and misinterpretations of this law that will harm society. We as a society have always been a knee jerk group. When will we stop and think before reacting?

If you have anger, violent thoughts and are able to lie with a straight face you don't have to worry about buying a gun, the Zionist Nazis will make you their cop or soldier and issue one to you free of charge.

Yup I just want people to have better access to health care. The majority of gun deaths each year are suicides that would happen without guns in many cases. Treat the depression and there is no reason for them to flip out and kill them self. There is no reason to have a database or any of the other B.S. JUST F***ING HELP PEOPLE. How hard it is that? Get rid of the "reasons" that cause people to flip the f*** out in the first place and why they want to kill themselves and others. We would have way more success doing that then trying to limit who can and cannot have a gun based on their mental health.

Anyone that enjoys killing animals just for the fun probably should get some help or go talk to someone.

A person should not be afraid to seek help or be forced to lie. How hard is it to lie to your doctor about if there is a gun in the house? Like all the checking of emails, listening into phone calls, Patriot Act, etc. DOES NO F***ING GOOD IF THEY/WE KNOW YOU ARE LISTENING. The only ones you are going to catch are the dumb ones, WTF are you doing wasting money on the B.S., hiring private contractors to manage the data, and invading my privacy/rights?

Now let see in 2008 these wannabes were full of hope, now in 2012 they just want to cope, then after 4 more years all we can they were just a bunch of dopes.

Obama the Coward--You need help. See a shrink, you are obsessed.

Do ANY of you not understand that this will impact EVERYONE, not just gun owners? Mental illness carries a stigma that does not easily go away. If you are labeled mentally ill (note: Depression is considered mental illness) and are reported, your name goes into a database. You will forevermore carry that label. You know who else does criminal background checks? Employers. So, now that the state of your mental health will be out there to be accessed during a criminal background check, a prospective employer will also see that you are labeled mentally ill. What do you think your chances are to get that job. This is the wrong way to go. It infriges on privacy, both personal and medical.

Wow

Things sure have changed, I remember buying my first gun at age 11, I saved up money that I earned because that was the only way people in those days could get money, and I walked several miles to a surplus store, where I previously saw this Remington single shot 22 rifle, I put my money on the counter and told the guy working their that I wanted that 22 and a box of rounds the whole price tag was about $26.00 total I walked out of the store and headed home no one thought twice about it, apparently we didn'thave all the crazies or the Liberals back then so things were not a problem, I did that several times over a couple of years buying a shot gun and a couple hunting rifles, today it will take an act of congress to buy or sell a rifle, and rifles are the least used in crime, something like 323 people killed by rifles in a year, 8,000 for pistols, other methods of murder including knives, arrows, hammers, fire and such runs in the hundreds of thousands, these shootings at malls and schools are horrible events but the problem is not the guns its the people and the mental health angle is not the only thing to look at we need to identify with what is creating all the mental deficient people in the first place and it is within our society, we somehow are creating these sick people and refuse to recognize it, now I'm not going to preach heavily on this because you all already know its in our music today and its in the games people play and its in the movies and shows you watch, and each and every one of you know that if you don't support the problem then it will fade away so to each of you its your fault. yes you are to blame if you don't do something your self to stop enabling these sick azz Hollywood types and the musicians and the game programers from contaminating society. next we will be plagued with zombies and vampires because kids grow up with them and that is what fantasy they will want to act out. the really sad part is its the people crying the hardest that should be shouldering most of the blame on this issue because they are the enablers.

Now on the subject of the mental health its pretty common knowledge that the people involved in mental health are there because they themselves are a little off center. we don't want a bunch of Sigmund Froyds calling the shots their judgment could be blurred we need to identify with the real problem not some politically staged artificial feel good con job, we don't need a band aid and a glass of koolaid we need to get a vaccination. Biden, Cuomo, and Obama are so far off base its laughable, hysterically laughable, its just political grandstanding and more damaging then problem solving, if there is a problem that needs fixing then fix the problem, they have not even come close to it. it is not very reassuring to see people in positions of such importance run off half cocked, and making laws before they even know what they are doing. its like the budget we need to stop spending and we all know it but they just insist on more spending, I fear this country has nowhere to go but down. God help us!!! the three stooges are running loose they are stoned on kool aid and they have ink pens.

Not only is the inauguration in the way of the Presidents vacation plans I see its on a holliday as well does that mean he will get double pay for that day? or maybe he just wont show up! no he will show up there will be cameras.

Gee. Some people may have to live their lives without guns in them. The horror! Just like a significant swath of the population does by choice anyway. Let's start with Mr. La Pierre and his documented history of a "nervous disorder" that precluded his being armed and going off to combat in Vietnam.

New and improved federal registry; all questions must be answered to purchase a gun, or bullets:

Q: Are you now or have you ever been judged, in a court, mentally incompetant or mentally ill?

A: no

Q: Why do you want to own a gun: (check one)

Self defense

Sport shooting

Hunting

Job Requirement

Q: If the answer to the previous question is sport shooting, you do not need to own a gun, it will be provided for you at the shooting range.

Q: If answer to previous question is Self Defense, Hunting, or Job Requirement, would you use a gun to kill a person, if required? Yes or No.

A: If the answer to the previous question is no, you do not need a gun, your purchase will be denied.

Q: If the answer to the previous question is yes, how often do you think about killing a person? Please check one:

A: Every hour, Daily, Weekly, Monthly

If your answer is not every hour, you are not properly considering the consequences of owning a gun and are not a safe gun owner, your purchase will be denied.

If your answer is every hour, you are a threat to society and your purchase will be denied.

Problem solved.

Homicidal ideation is a common medical term for thoughts about homicide. There is a range of homicidal thoughts which spans from vague ideas of revenge to detailed and fully formulated plans without the act itself.^[1] Many people who have homicidal ideation do not commit homicide. 50-91% of people surveyed on university grounds in various places in the USA admit to having had a homicidal fantasy.

PSYCHE EXAMS CANNOT BE PRE-EMPTIVELY A REQUIREMENT TO BUY ANY GUN. THEY CAN BE USED AS A WAY TO TAKE GUNS FROM PEOPLE, BUT ONLY BASED ON THREATS OR ACTIONS ALREADY ESTABLISHED. EVEN THEN, THE GUNS MUST BE RETURNED IF THE PERSON IS NO LONGER A THREAT TO ANYONE ELSE.

I was depressed once, and contemplated suicide very seriously for a long time. I had guns. I never hurt myself or anyone else. I got over the problem on my own with no treatment whatsoever. I can see, if I made threats against myself or someone else, taking my guns...but not permanently. Clearly these things pass, and in my case have never returned. I am no danger to myself or anyone else...in fact I've never even hit someone in anger unless it was self defense. Sometimes things happen and you get depressed or fantasize about hurting people who have hurt you...that doesn't make you abnormal or dangerous (definately not permanently).

The 2nd amendment was ratified to preserve slavery.

The northern states did not want the Army used to put down the slave revolts in the south, so they added an amendment making it easier to create state militias to put down the slave revolts. The even said "sates" instead of "country".

Picture yourself walking up to Jefferson and telling him that his slaves have the right to bear arms in order to make it easier to revolt. He would have shot you on the spot.

This is the same argument being made now by the gun nuts. They claim that anyone should own any gun they want and should take it anywhere anytime and use it any way they want because their actions "shall not be infringed".

The 1st amendment on free speech has limitations on it. So does the 2nd amendment.

Guns should be well regulated just like cars are well regulated. Let common sense prevail.

Someday, not being exploited by Facebook may be a cause to deny you a gun:

mashable.com/2012/08/07/no-facebook-psychopath/

According to the data, that means around 6 billion people on the planet are psychopaths!!!! OMG!!!

Just like politicians, to fixate on the gun, and to rush for something they "can pass", just so they can claim political clout in a future election with a "see what we enacted? Vote for us, we got that done"; while totally side stepping or ignoring the mental health aspect of things (the more difficult side to look at).

And when those sick individuals either procure a gun illegally, or resort to other methods of killing or suicide killing go all Al'Quida and start resorting to bombs and home made explosives, what will they say next? We're not dealing with sane people here, and we're not dealing with someone who would simply be detered because it's harder to get a gun, or even if they don't have one. The whole thing was willful, premeditated, and planned out. There really is little difference between a Middle Eastern suicide bomber and an Adam Lanza. It really doesn't matter that Adam Lanza wasn't a Muslim or an Arab; his acts were on par with the acts of a terrorist, and the effect on the country was much the same. This is the sort of person one is dealing with, with these mass shooters, not a person like you or I, who's thinking rationally, and would react as we tend to see ourselves reacting.

And what have we learned with Al Quida? When one makes it more difficult for them to attack in one way, they invent a different strategy and come after us some other way. The Adam Lanza's of the world really are as deranged as the underwear bomber and the like... These killers really are not all that different from those terrorists who can go bomb a hospital in the Middle East, for purposes as twisted as whatever Lanza was trying to "communicate" with this slaughter of his. Regardless of their ethnicity, regardless of which country they have come from, the effect on society, and on the public's consciousness (or emotional state) is not all that different...

One more issue that no one is really not discussing is that many serious psychological conditions, such as schizophrenia, tend to develop at a relatively late age. A person may be certifiably sane in all ways at 18 and hearing voices telling him to kill at 20. There is a very small window in which to act with these people.

Another major issue is that the brain is not fully developed until around 26 for men and 24 for women. The forebrain functions, primarily impulse control, are some of the last functions to mature. That leaves men between 18 and 26 with no real mental defect except immature impulse control. Considering that many killers lack impulse control, how do you account for these people?

Out is the 66 industrialized/developed countries, the USA is dead last in its treatment of mental illness. Few insurance policies pay for it. Few who are functional with moderate to severe mental illnesses have insurance at all. It is almost impossible to get on Social Security Disability with mental illnesses. And, as a society, we decided to dump our mentally ill on the street with little or no treatment in order to save money. The alternative was to modernize both inpatient and outpatient facilities as the rest of the industrialized world has done. So it is inappropriate to whine about the mentally ill wandering about in our society, because we put squarely where they are.

The Evil Tessmacher

King George III did several things to provoke the American colonies but banning weapons was not among them - not as far as I know. The two things that irked the Americans most was the growing list of taxes and the Boston Massacre. Famously the Stamp Act and then taxes on various other imported goods.

Mind you, it wasn't being taxed that bothered them, it was the fact that had no body in Parliament to represent their interests and to vote against things on their behalf. Like the law that requires colonists to provide food and lodging to soldiers at their own expense.

The 2nd amendment was added to the constitution for the purpose of domestic defense. George Washington called for what was essentially the birth of the "military industrial complex" in his first state of the union saying, "A free people ought not only to be armed, but disciplined; to which end a uniform and well-digested plan is requisite; and their safety and interest require that they should promote such manufactories as tend to render them independent of others for essential, particularly military, supplies."

The context of this statement was as it applied towards national defense- an important topic for a nation in it's infancy. Please read Washington's first state of the union, it's great stuff! http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/blfirstsou.htm

I see what they are working into they cant take gun rights away from everyone so they plan on doing it one individule at a time, I am not making this up! this is the plan.

what the new law states is that since I served in the military and at one point was counciled, and could be considered PTSD and or deeperessed as almost all veterans fall into this catagory then I can no longer be around firearms even though I have had no problems since discharge 0ver 40 years ago, I do love the way that our wonderful enlightened fair and honest president is defending our constitution just like he promised to when he took office and just like he will again in a couple of days, and the liberals love him for it just wait till he goes after the things that matter to them and no one will be in a position to stop him,

The 2nd amendment was ratified to preserve slavery.

Total revisionist nonsense.

http://guncite.com/

Read up.

The 1st amendment on free speech has limitations on it. So does the 2nd amendment.

There are no pre-emptive limits on speech. You can even say "fire" legally in a crowded theatre. Christopher Hitchens did it in a debate before he died just to show no such law exists...and it doesn't exist. The crime is not yelling "fire" falsely or truthfully (when there is an actual fire) in a crowded theatre...the crime is inciting a panic.

Someone has to get hurt FIRST before speech can be limited. Credible verbal threats against someone are considered harm, and therefore fall under this.

So where did the "fire" myth come from?

A Supreme Court case where they trampled the 1st Amendment. In a unanimous decision they said you could be locked in prison for passing out anti-draft fliers in WW1. The Justice who wrote the opnion later changed his mind after realizing he was wrong:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_theater

Holmes, writing for a unanimous Court, ruled that it was a violation of the Espionage Act of 1917 (amended with the Sedition Act of 1918), to distribute flyers opposing the draft during World War I. Holmes argued this abridgment of free speech was permissible because it presented a "clear and present danger" to the government's recruitment efforts for the war.

Fenan writes that Justice Holmes began to doubt his decision due to criticism received from Free Speech activists. He also met the legal scholar Zechariah Chafee and discussed his work "Freedom of Speech in Wartime".^[2][3] According to Fenan, Holmes's change of heart influenced his decision to join the minority and dissent in the Abrams v. United States case. Abrams was deported for issuing flyers saying the US should not intervene in the Russian Revolution. Holmes and Brandeis said that 'a silly leaflet by an unknown man' should not be considered illegal.^[2][4]

In his introductory remarks to a 2006 debate in defense of free speech, writer Christopher Hitchens parodied the Holmes judgement by opening "FIRE! Fire, fire... fire. Now you've heard it," before condemning the famous analogy as "the fatuous verdict of the greatly over-praised Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes." Hitchens argued that the imprisoned socialists "were the ones shouting fire when there really was a fire in a very crowded theatre indeed... [W]ho's going to decide?"^[7][8]

I see that I have to be in agreement with Sum Succubus today. The whole idea of entering someone with a "mental illness" into some random government database seems a bit extreme. How many forms of "mental illness" are there? Well, let's see...there's paranoia, schizofrenia, depression, manic depression, cleptomania, arachniphobia,...anything there is a fear of is kinda diagnosed as a "mental defect". All you have to do is take a quick look on WebMD.com and you can find some of the things which you could be diagnosed with a "mental illness", and where do these laws draw the line? Not all "mental illness leads to a shooting. Some twenty odd years ago, I was diagnosed as depressed with post traumatic stress. Does that mean that now, I cannot own a gun? Dispite the fact that I have become a well adjusted member of society, who holds a job, has friends, helps out in his community, and tries to do what he can to follow his beliefs and instill them in his children.

All this just shows what happens when you govern with your heart and not your head. If our leaders cannot come to terms with the fact that in situations like this, you absolutely must put the intelect before the emotion. There's a psychological philosophy. Thinking before reacting gives way to laws that are fair and just. Your mind is the only real weapon you are given to make your way through this life. If you do not use it to do what is right, for the good of all, then you are not governing...you're dictating. That would include us "gun crazies" as some of you call us.

For any person to go around saying that in a moment of anger and passion, they did not think for one moment "the world would would surely be better off without that son of a biscit eater" when they thought about the person who caused the anger, is either lying or has some form of mental illness. Thoughts such as this are normal in the human animal, as we are both territorial and preditorial as a species. The difference between a civilized person and someone with a mental defect is this:

A civilized person realizes their anger and owns it. They look at their behavior and realize it for it's non-constructiveness in their lives, focus on other tasks, and get over the anger. If they connot find other tasks to focus on and cannot get past being angry, they find a member of their friends or family and "vent" the anger through talking about it. They listen to suggestions from someone else and deal with the problem. After the problem is corrected, they lead a happier, healthier, and more productive life.

A person with a mental defect realizes that anger and acts on it. They will then do one of two things, use it outwardly or turn it inward. Turning the anger inward leads to depression. When the depression becomes bad enough, it will turn to thoughts of suicide. Using the anger outwardly, leads to the person hitting, or grabbing a pipe and hitting, or grabbing a gun and shooting.

Understand, I never use the word normal to discribe a person...normal is a cycle on the dryer. Everyone in the world has some form of mental defect. Some can actually be healthy. As I mentioned at the outset of this post, anything that has a fear can be diagnosed as a mental defect. It's our flaws that make us human. It's how we act on our flaws that make us civilized...or not.

miklkit,

Go spew that bovine manure on some other web site. You might find that most people on here are a little more intellegent then that.

Depression is a mental illness and many have short episodes of it when they have a close one die, a marriage dissolve, or whatever else including reading about idiot politicians doing a knee-jerk reaction and/or readying themselves for campaigning and the next election. Is everyone who takes an anti-depressant for any length of time going to be refused to own a gun?

Remember Freedom, the right to bear arms, etc.

Getting to be pretty much a memory.

I recall watching Mad Max years ago and realized afterwards that we could all end up like that with the people being only very rich or very poor, the downfall of society, crime running rampant.

Nah, especially not here, as our government is 'by the people, for the people, . . .

. . . or it was!

The issue:

The majority of mentally ill patients do not exhibit homicidal ideation. Only specific sets of the mentally ill are at high risk for homicidal ideation.

The next issue, which IMO is the more significant issue, is that mental illness is an opinion. There are no conclusive medical tests to diagnose mental illness. When you go to the Dr. and are sick with say strep throat - The Dr. can test you and conclusively say that you have strep throat. With mental illness it is not so. We run into a slippery slope quite quickly, as I am sure many people can see.

Moreover, segregating individuals causes hostility, which in my opinion will cause more violence. ( if you do not understand this consider students like those at Columbine - who were segregated by their peers and made to feel inferior in some manner. We are at a defining point in our country, and I will say myself that even I am not able to rationalize a clear cut answer.

The most I can come up with, which many will not approve, is to respect freedom. When an individual murders someone they should be prosecuted - regardless of mental standing. Furthermore, institutionalization is different from hospitalization and in that regard individuals who are hospitalized should retain their 2nd amendment right; whereas individuals who are institutionalized should be processed differently. For those who don't understand the difference I will explain in very briefly below.

A hospitalization occurs when a person is brought in under an EPC. When an EPC is issued by the police, a psychiatrist must perform an evaluation on the individual to deem whether or not they should be institutionalized. Institutionalization requires a process through the courts where the individual becomes a ward of the state.

In summary, everyone must consider - have you ever been mentally ill in your lifetime? Did you lose a child to war and consider suicide? Have you been divorced and become extremely depressed? Have you lost something in your life that brought you to your knee's? If so, and I believe we all have, then you too have suffered from mental illness at one point in your life.

Anna,

Yes, I agree that Wayne LaPierre might have just been nervous/anxious as you say when he evaded the Vietnam draft. I'm sure thousands of other young men and women were as well. I was still in high school when the Vietnam war ended. I remember watching the 6 o'clock news with my father and thinking about how sad and frightening it was to see the dead bodies and body bags every day.

But, I still think it is important to address this issue since mental health and gun control is such a concern right now in our nation's history. Perhaps if Mr. LaPierre still has a nervous disorder, he should be evaluated, especially since he is advocating mass gun ownership and assault weapons.

Also, one must admit that it is the height of irony that the CEO of the NRA would have opted out of serving our country when he is calling on the rest of us to arm ourselves and protect our lives and families from foreign invaders, etc. Seems he would have relished using the heavy artillery and milita equipment against our enemies.

I have owned guns and enjoy target shooting. My father owns two hunting rifles, and my son and his young wife have licenses to carry concealed weapons which they do on occasion.

Anyway, I don't hate guns, but I do hate gun violence, and am glad to see more gun laws are on the way.

I am glad the mental health issues are being discussed as well, and think that all these things, including violent video games/movies are part of the problem.

Does this mean that all the people in the video game industry who design and make all those blood and guts and kill everything games are mentally deficient and can't be allowed to own firearms?

Any law railroaded through is not good for the society. The same is true for any Odumster executive order, heir Hitler.

313 million in America. 2 million service members (both estimates). Even with Muskets, a tyrannical government isn't even possible. Even if the military sided with a tyrannical leader, we'd destroy all the air strips, flip all the tanks and take out the tyrant. Quite easily.

But we still need protection, and an 8-round limit (1 always chambered) could be a scary thing. We always hear "that should be all you need if an armed assailant is after you" - but what if there are 3? We're setting ourselves up, as always, to be victims. And on our own dollar (yes, this is going to be very, very expensive). While criminals will still be killing us and our kids just the same or more.

Good job, morons.

Food for thought - 10% of the population takes antidepressants. 1. they could be disqualified and 2. those drugs have nasty side effects.

haggisbingo-2225582,

Limiting multi magazines (a clip is also known as a speed loader. It is a single strip of metal aproximately 1/4 inch wide with "clips" on it to hold bullets, which can be quickly slid into a magazine. Your weapons ignorance is showing...) is not common sence. Ask the average soldier, even if he/she is a reservist. It takes a second to change magazines and continue firing. Common sense would dictate that we work on the problem and not the inanimate object. Judging from most of the things I see you post on this issue though, that may be to much for you to take in and your brain might shut down. When you actually start using your mind to work the problem, you might find that we have a people problem and not a gun problem. Your solution to limit weapons and multi magazines solves nothing until you address the people problem.

The issue:

The majority of mentally ill patients do not exhibit homicidal ideation.

The majority of people in general admit to experiencing this...

"50-91% of people surveyed on university grounds in various places in the USA admit to having had a homicidal fantasy."

"Homicidal ideation is common, accounting for 10-17% of patient presentations to psychiatric facilities in the USA."

So you're right, but it's important to remember how common it is among the "normal" people in society.

Anyways...just like gun ownership, high capacity clips, "assault rifles", single parenthood, violent and sexualized movies, TV, and music, there is no correlation with mental illness and violent crime (or murder).

The largest correlation to these things is the Drug War and it's prohibitions that create black markets and therefore gangs, and therefore widespread violence and murder. Where it is ended we see a correlation to declines in violent crime and murder.

Contrary to popular misconceptions and myths, you cannot correlate with any consistency even mass murder to any of the things i said above. It is most heavily correlated to psychotropic drug use (pills people are put on for depression, schizoid disroders, etc.). Those drugs are known to cause suicidal and homocidal outbursts, psychosis, and other horrific things.

Limiting or restricting gun ownership, high capacity clips, "assault rifles", single parenthood, violent and sexualized movies, TV, and music, etc. is likely to have little or no effect on violent crime rates and murder rates because if they are not corollary then they logically cannot be causal.

You can reduce the murder rate by 40-51% (and possibly as high as 70%) by ending the Drug War. It will also greatly reduce violent crime (as it reduces murder). You can reduce mass shootings somewhat byt placing more scrutiny upon psychotropics and their effects.

It's important to remember too that there is no rise in mass murder...in fact it hit it's peak in 1929. It's a declining issue. Schools are safer now than in many decades. The murder rate fell 49% the last 20 years and 20% the last 10 years, while violent crime and property crime fell at similar rates.

All the people calling for gun control, video game censoreship, etc., all seem to ignore these facts and go right on pushing their agendas.

No one wants to ever again see anything like the senseless slaughter of 26 people – including 20 children - at a school. But as legislators turn toward creating new gun laws, here are five facts they need to know.

1. Violent crime – including violent crime using guns – has dropped massively over the past 20 years.

The violent crime rate - which includes murder, rape, and beatings - is half of what it was in the early 1990s. And the violent crime rate involving the use of weapons has also declined at a similar pace.

2. Mass shootings have not increased in recent years.

Despite terrifying events like Sandy Hook or last summer's theater shooting in Aurora, Colorado, mass shootings are not becoming more frequent. "There is no pattern, there is no increase," says criminologist James Allen Fox of Northeastern University, who studies the issue. Other data shows that mass killings peaked in 1929.

3. Schools are getting safer.

Across the board, schools are less dangerous than they used be.Over the past 20 years, the rate of theft per 1,000 students dropped from 101 to 18. For violent crime, the victimization rate per 1,000 students dropped from 53 to 14.

4. There Are More Guns in Circulation Than Ever Before.

Over the past 20 years, virtually every state in the country has liberalized gunownership rules and many states have expanded concealed carry laws that allow more people to carry weapons in more places. There around 300 million guns in the United States and at least one gun in about 45 percent of all households. Yet the rate of gun-related crime continues to drop.

5. "Assault Weapons Bans" Are Generally Ineffective.

While many people are calling for reinstating the federal ban on assault weapons – an arbitrary category of guns thathas no clear definition – research shows it would have no effect on crime and violence. "Should it be renewed," concludes a definitive study, "the ban's effects on gun violence are likely to be small at best and perhaps too small for reliable measurement."

The Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting is as horrifing a crime as can be imagined. It rips at the country's heart and the call to action is strong and righteous. But as Joe Biden and his panel of experts consider changes to gun laws and school-safety policies, they need to lead with their heads and not just their hearts.

Over the past dozen years, too many policies – the Patriot Act, the war in Iraq, the TARP bailouts – have been ruled by emotion and ideology.

Passing sweeping new restrictions on Second Amendment rights won't heal the pain and loss we all feel but just may create many more problems in our future.

http://reason.com/reasontv/2013/01/10/reasons-5-facts-on-guns-and-gun-violence

What will occur is there will be a chilling effect on mentally ill people seeking help for depression and the like to avoid being labeled and having gun rights taken away. That can't be good.

There is general agreement that anyone who has a mental illness should not have access to guns.

There may not yet be a psychological term for "The fear of having your guns taken away." However, it is characterized by a tendency toward anger, violence and paranoia, (particularly when thinking about the government taking away guns) three conditions which certainly would warrant a mental illness label.

Once you have obtained a diagnosis of a mental condition, then you are no longer fit to own a gun.

Since we don't want to treat the mental condition, that would require increasing health care costs, we will simply require that all persons who fear the government will take away their guns will be instantly diagnosed as having a mental condition (label to be determined later) which makes those persons not eligible to have a gun.

In addition, if any of your family or friends has a mental condition, you would not be able to have a gun unless you could prove that no one would be able to gain access to the gun. If you are able to access the gun, then you have just proven that someone could access the gun and you must be able to prove that no one could access the gun.

This will be known as the Joseph Heller gun access amendment to the Gun Control Act of 1968.

Very simple, elegant solution to the problem of the mentally ill having access to guns.

Once again, Haggis chimes in with his rant. He still hasn't looked up the meaning of "WEAPONS of MASS DESTRUCTION."

Hilarious.

Dirp - what about individuals who are unable to have complex thought? Can we add that to the Josephy Heller amendment?

FreedomOverSympathy: if I go to a Psychic Practitioner, is that the same thing ?

I must admit, I can get drugs from her that make me feel less angry and violent.

Yeah, about these 'unintended consequences', how about a temporary addition to the overall list? Say, some school counselor finds a violent tendency in a student, and calls to put the person on the 'do not sell' list, but that designation only lasts a certain period, year or two, and then they drop off. Maybe, if the person is on the list, they'd have to get checked out before they come off the list, etc. But this permanent thing WILL keep people from getting the help they need, for fear of having one of their rights taken away. Need to think outside the box on this one.

How about requiring a mental health certificate, from a licensed psychiatrist, before every gun or bullet purchase ?

That way, at least the victims of the next mass murderer's shooting will have some shrink's malpractice carrier to blame.

Dirp - I cannot understand your question to me - I do not know what a Psychic Practitioner is. Also, you are not considering. If you were a psychiatrist would you ever pass someone to buy a gun without knowing the future? If that person does kill someone, and you are at fault - you could be sued, or lose your license to practice. So obviously you are going to protect your own skin and deny everyone who comes. Think the idea all the way through for yourself. I believe you will come to the same conclusion as I did.

FreedomOverSympathy:

The inability to do basic research, or knowledge of current (or is it now historic?) writers would probably qualify as a limiting condition, known as contemporaneousness ignoranmous grandous.

While not particularly a permanent limiting condition, it is most frequent demonstrated in persons who report themselves to be "fans" of the "reality" television programs Jersey Shore, Toddlers in Tiaras, wrestling and NASCAR. An often quoted catch phrase for the group is "You can't fix stupid."

FreedomOverSympathy: (to your 1.133) Thus the point of going to a "PSYCHIC" Practioner, the issue of knowing the future is, presumably, not a problem for a real psychic, right?

All we would need is for the amendment to list as authorization from a phychiatrist, phsychologist, or physic practitioner.

Also, anger and violence issues are resolved with the drugs available from them, so long as you stay on your meds.

Although, those most phsychics might sell might make it so you don't even want a gun anymore.

As a NYer...those better tread water very lightly now. I wouldn't be surprise now if peoples 1st Amendment will be violated. Be careful what you post or what you say to others now..because you may have someone watching you and next thing you know, you are called a crazy or mentally ill!!

Even if you are one who may never buy a firearm, if you are uploaded to the database now...who is to say that it wouldn't be used against you later on for something else??

Someone of you who wanted this may have goten more than what you bargain for.

It will be interesting to see just how many cops and prosecutors will end up being barred from owning or handling a gun, they are some of the most violence prone individuals there are on the planet!!!

Angry and emotive people can't own guns...well, that is just about everybody. Good bye second amendment.

I guess now there would be a real problem with that movie "9 to 5" when Dora Lee said to her boss "I'll turn you from a rooster to a hen with just one shot!" I suppose now if you like certain movies too much, it's a problem.

Victims of child abuse never completely recover. There is evidence that childhood psychological development is gated.

Jaffe is 100% correct. No one wants to take responsibility for the seriously mentally ill - least of all the psychiatrists/clinical psychologists/mental healthcare providers/etc.. They behave in a very irresponsible way by avoiding responsibility for their patient's care. Regular doctors/healthcare providers would have their licenses revoked by their licensing boards if they behaved in the same way.

Very frequently in the cases of horrific massacre, the guilty party is found to have been in the care of a psychiatrist/psychologist who did nothing. Many of these violent individuals are found to be carrying diagnoses such as paranoid schizophrenia. Paranoid schizophrenics: hear voices that tell them to do things, have paranoid delusions that other people are trying to poison or "get" them, etc.. Should these people have access to attack rifles/automatic pistols with high capacity clips/etc.? Shouldn't the psychiatrists bear some responsibility if they don't help restrict these mentally ill individuals from having access to these weapons?

I see dirp and silverton think that a fear of our government becoming tyrannical is irrational, and for silverton, a fear of the NRA is. Interesting.

Why should the people not fear our government becoming tyrannical? Government, historically, exsists to farther it's own ends and agendas. The only thing that keeps our system of government limited in this is a vidgulant populace. Quote:

Certainly one of the chief guarantees of freedom under any government, no matter how popular and respected, is the right of the citizens to keep and bear arms.... [T]he right of the citizens to bear arms is just one guarantee against arbitrary government and one more safeguard against a tyranny which now appears remote in America, but which historically has proved to be always possible. - Hubert H. Humphrey, Democratic Vice President 1968-1972

And even today is still possible. Vidgulance is the only weapon the people truely have against this. I fear the government becoming too tyrranical because it is possible. Look at the Patriot Act in it's entirety and try to prove me wrong. How many freedoms have we lost over the years because of quick laws and executive orders such as this? Your freedom of speech is limited to political correctness. Now, your weapons are limited because of a few people who could not deal with the society that we live in. Why are these things being limited? We know that the shooter at Newtown was a crimimal. He stole the guns and commited the shooting. So what law on the books stopped that? What law coming will stop that? Will a criminal say "well, the government said I can only have seven rounds in this magazine when I do this mass shooting..."? Hell no! We need to start using our heads on this instead of trying mass punishment. You don't hurt the people who commit these crimes that way. But what you are doing is limiting the populace from defending itself against a government run amuck.

But let's say, for the sake of arguement, that we are not looking at the government coming to register us to take away guns in the future. Then what I ask? Is this the new form of stimulus package? By getting people to run out and buy all the guns off the shelf so manufacturers start showing profit? Making it so there are jobs in the weapons manufacturing business? Profits on papaer so we might show some economic growth in Q4 2012 and Q1 2013...maybe that's it. Perhaps we aren't seeing as much economic growth and we want to give the illusion to the public that our economy is moving along. Because that really is our government. Give the people smoke and mirrors to keep them happy and us making the big dollars in office.

Try reading a book like Six Political Illusions by Political Scientist James L. Payne, and think about it for a while. Since the 1990s, we've been lulled into this sleep about how our government is here to take care of us, and yet look at where we are. No real jobs. No real growth. No real freedoms. If you believe there are, look again at the Patriot Act.

Dirp - you are claiming that I am an ignoranmous - ie ignorant or stupid. Rather I have no way to prove that I am not other than the following: Please solve the following question since you are so gifted and smart. I will upload the answer in 15 minutes if you are unable to figure it out. (with work) I use this question often for tutoring calculus 2.

Q: A steam shovel lifts a 500 pound load of gravel from the ground to a height of 80 feet. The gravel, however, leaks from the shovel at a rate of 1 pound per second. If it takes the shovel 1 minute to life its load (at a constant rate for ease), how much work is performed?

Clue: Work = Force x Distance.

If intelligence is what we are questioning - I promise, more than likely, you will lose.

check this out video.today.msnbc.msn.com/today/50208495/#50208495 He did not us a rifle. 4 hand guns

Making a law against a weapon that was not even used, Just like Bush going after WMD that were not there

Freedom: perhaps simply you lack a sense of humor?

As to your question, irrelevant to whether you should go to a psychiatrist or psychic to get approval for a gun.

Also, some of the most intelligent people in the world are also some of the most ignorant. Ignorance is not a measure of intelligence, it is the lack of knowledge in a particular area. Unfortunately, many of those who lack intelligence are also ignorant of that.

FYI: Joseph Heller was the author of the book "Catch 22" in which the phrase was also entered into modern society. It is a reference to being caught in a bureaucratic runaround. In particular, one of the situations involved being able to leave the army under psychiatric evaluation. In order to obtain a psychiatric discharge, you had to request one; however, if you requested a discharge, that proved you were not "crazy" and you could not get the discharge.

Thus, my calling the amendment the Joseph Heller amendment.

Nice trolling with you.

FreedomOverSympathy

37,600 foot-pounds.

"ProIndividual" said:

It's important to remember too that there is no rise in mass murder...in fact it hit it's peak in 1929. It's a declining issue.

---------------------

'ProIndividual,' Your statement is NOT TRUE.

Dr. A. Charles Catania sent us a graph of the 12 deadliest mass shootings in the United States. He showed their effects cumulatively, over time, so that you could see how steep the slope has become in recent years.

http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2012/12/26/16169576-chart-before-and-after-the-assault-weapons-ban?lite

A Guide to Mass Shootings in America

There have been at least 62 in the last 30 years—and most of the killers got their guns legally.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/07/mass-shootings-map

I see you were unable to answer the question - Mathematics is not your subject. You see it is very relevant, as it shows the ability to critically think; which in reality is what this whole gun control dilemma is about. The ability to critically think, not just jump to an action based on qualitative perception.

As Promised:

A: solve ( integral [ ( 500 - (3/4)*y ) dy , y, 0, 80 ] ) = 37,600 foot-pounds.

Logic: the load travels 80 feet. In that 80 feet we lose 60lb's, as it takes the load 1 minute to travel ( we lose 1 lb per second ) This makes the differential per load 60/80 = 3/4. but because we are losing this amount as the shovel increases we must look at every individual foot. Furthermore because each foot we move upward we are subtracting the sum of previous iteration - we must use an integral, or Riemann's sum. Therefore since the initial load weights 500lbs and we lose gravel at a rate of 60lb/80ft our f(x) = 500 - (3/4)*y , where y represents every individual foot which the steam shovel progresses.

Work: [ 500 - (3/4)*y ] dy | 0 to 80 ---> [ 500*y - (3/4)*(y^2/2) ] dy | 0 to 80 --->

500*(80) - (3/4)*(80^2/2) ] ---> 40,000 - (3/4)*3,200 = 40,000 - 2,400 = 37,600 foot-pounds.

Jimspence - =) your ability to critically think is quite sexy (in non sexual manner) - and its funny, but I believe you and I have the roughly the same opinions of the 2nd amendment ( from reading previous posts ).

JimSpence: thanks, didn't want to bother with the high school math. I hated doing it in HS, and its been too long to even think about it.

Bottom line on blaming the mentally ill and saying that only the mentally ill should be prevented from having guns is that, if you think about it at all, nearly everyone is "mentally ill" or has been at some point in their life. No psychiatrist ever "cured" anyone, the people are simply no longer manifesting symptoms of the illness (kind of like cancer patients "in remission.")

FreedomOverSympathy is correct, no psychologist or psychiatrist would sign off that a person is not mentally ill, at least not if there were any financial consequences to them.

At least a physic could truthfully state that they could not foresee that in the future the person would be committing a crime using a gun. Every psychic I have ever heard of has been able to truthfully state that they could not foresee some terrible tragedy befalling someone. They are 100% accurate.

The real problem with the mentally ill having guns is that they have guns and are mentally ill.

Almost everyone has been or is mentally ill.

Most people are not armed and mentally ill.

Wrap that around your critical thinking.

rradiko, Proindividual said "mass murder." You brought up a graph talking about "mass shootings." There is a difference, so Proindividuals statement may still be correct.

Also, Mother Jones has a distinct bias. It would be better if you got your statistics from less biased sites.

What people fail to understand is that a strict responsibility come with owning a firearm. When firearms are not in use they are still must be under the control of the owner. In a locked case is ok but portable, in a locked cabinet is better for honest people, but again not really secure, In a safe is best with with a keyed combination lock. First you have to unlock the dial before you can actually enter the combination to get to the firearms. Plus safes are very heavy and hard to transport by one person.

The other thing I would like to point out for those who think that AR-15 rifles have no need outside of war. I recently spoke with a reservist. I was informed from him, they must be certified annually to retain their combat redieness certification. The Guard does no provide weapons and ammunition for practice only recert. So in order for them to remain efficient with a firearm they must practice on their own time and money and with their own firearm.

All the right-wing NRA nutjobs seem to think this second little bit in the paper that Jimmy and Tommy were writing, meant that we should be able to protect ourselves from our own government. This should demonstrate that any political group afraid of its own government should never be allowed to run said government. I think it ought to have been made a little clearer that the slips of paper we used to punch holes in were the means they intended us to use to protect ourselves from our own government, but somehow they thought folks would exercise a little thought. Oh well.

Oh Evil Trench you are so wrong here. If you are going to try and teach history then why don't you start there....History. To do this you need to start with the Declaration of Indepence

From the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. —

Now you see, the long chain of abuses the founding fathers had just suffered were caused by the rightful king of England. They wrote the declaration of independence to explain to all mankind why they were declaring Independence.

They wrote the Bill of rights (the key 10 rights we all share) to set a basis of the constitution and lock the major rights in place so all understood.

Now the constitution was written at a time where people knew and understood a lot better then we do what a government is capable of in terms of causing harm to The People. And the Founders knew that there was no way in heck the revolution would have been possible without an armed populace.

Right in the middle of the Declaration they specifically state "That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

That is the Founders outright saying that NO Government can be trusted to always put the people first, they believe that sooner or later the revolution may need to be repeated. They specifically placed the second amendment into the Bill of Rights to ENSURE it would be safe FROM Government.

If we are going to do history lessons let's really get in there.

Finally starting to see a few intelligent posts toward the end here. Tired and Lorielle have hit on something important here.

I think something virtually everyone can agree on, if you take the very subject of guns out of the discussions, is that "crazy" people commit these mass killings. You could argue that "crazy" or disturbed people are responsible for virtually every deliberate killing, other than self defense.

If you separate all the other "noise", the root cause of these violent acts is "crazy" or mentally disturbed people. So if we are going to attempt to do something to lessen the occurrence of these acts, we need to address this root cause. But the problem is that we all find it hard to separate all the other "noise". So we talk about laws to keep guns out of the hands of "crazy" people. But that just creates another problem because just what defines "crazy"? I'm sure as you all read this, everybody is creating a definition in your mind. But I think it is pretty safe to say, there is no universal definition amongst us. I've read at least a couple dozen different versions in this thread. It isn't a black and white kind of thing at all. Something that is not easy to define with universal acceptance is a dumb criteria to base laws upon.

So still keeping all the "noise" separate, can we all agree that we would be better off if we could provide help to all who are mentally disturbed in any way and who could potentially become "crazy"? Now before you answer that, please separate any "noise" about help. We know there are potential issues with help. Some drugs used and even some therapies may be considered to have their own problems and maybe don't always help. So for the sake of argument, let's assume "help" really does help.

Now if you are still with me, we have to consider the issue Lorielle brings up. That is the stigma that gets attached to someone receiving help. We all know that is very real. I believe it is safe to say that the stigma alone may be enough to discourage some from seeking help, that really need it.

One of the problems in developing a solution, is that I would bet that the vast majority of people look at this from the standpoint of how we help should somebody else. How do we best treat those "crazy" people and keep them from being a threat to me? We think about it being someone else instead of thinking about it being ourselves. Sure, you are thinking, "but I'm not the "carzy" one." But who can say that they don't have or have ever had some "issues"? Ever get mad at someone? Ever have something tragic happen and feel a bit depressed about it? Ever feel like things just weren't going the way you wanted them to? I'm guessing that if we are honest, none of us can deny that we have been in such a situation at one time or another.

Does that make you "crazy"? No of course not, but it does say that at times in everyone's life there are things that happen that at least somewhat cloud our thinking. That doesn't mean we are/were on the edge of flipping out and killing people, but it does mean that at times we could all potentially need a little help of one sort or another. A lot of people help themselves through these times. Maybe deep self analysis, maybe prayer, maybe talking to a close friend or relative we can lean on, maybe a discussion with someone in the clergy, maybe even a conversation with a stranger. In most cases we all find ways to deal with our issues. But sometimes individuals aren't able to deal with it constructively.

We need to realize that in the minds of the people who commit these violent acts, they are dealing with their issues. Chances are that these people have tried to deal with their issues for a long time and it didn't help, and in fact may have made things worse. Sometimes people with issues seek out others with similar issues. That is common with drug or alcohol abuse. It is also common with things like hate groups. Usually, this doesn't turn out very well and tends to be about justifying how someone feels, rather than trying to change it.

It is easy for us to say that we would never let a situation get that bad, but do we really know that? I'm sure that most reading this are saying, "Well, that's not me, that happens to other people, it could never happen to me." You might be right. But you could be wrong. So humor me for a bit and say that, "Just maybe it could be me in some future theoretical state that I can't relate to right now."

Now, design a system where you could get some help, but not be "flagged" or stigmatized as some "mental defective". What you want is to able to get some help when you, at some point, might need it. That is how we need to address this issue. It takes on an entirely different look if we think about it as something to help ourselves rather than to help "crazy" people.

Personally, I think we need to create this theoretical system and separate it entirely from the issue of a right to own a gun. The idea would be to get more people help at the earliest stages of problems and prevent people from advancing from "having some issues" to becoming "crazy". One thing we would need to do is absolve the caregivers from any liability for what some "patient" might possibly do. I also think there is room for both professionals in the health care industry, as well as trained and screened volunteers. If you think about it, we often talk over our problems with trusted friends and family, and they often help us. They aren't professionals. I believe that in many cases, people who "go over the edge", don't have those trusted friends or family that they feel they can turn to, and maybe dealing with someone they don't know, might actually be an easier way to start.

We could design a system that has various levels involved. Could start with just a simple volunteer, trained "counsellor" and screener. That person could potentially recommend a person to another, more specialized counsellor depending on the nature of a person's problems. And then maybe the next step is to a mental health professional. I think an important part of this system would be a way to keep it strictly confidentional and anonymous for the user.

I believe there are a lot of good people who would be more than willing to help in this on a volunteer basis. So all you would need is some certified training for them. You might even go so far as to give such volunteers some sort of tax credit in exchange for their participation. I see it as a form of National Service. I would also suggest that we find a way to fund the professional care, provided the recommendation came through the system. Such a system would not be without cost. But I think it may very well be worth it if we can prevent even just a few of the kinds of tragic incidents that occassionally occur.

I think something that could help maybe is a "survey" type questionnaire designed by mental health professionals. Sort of a self-test kind of thing where an individual could score themselves and get a recommendation. People like these kinds of things as long as it's something they do themselves and the data isn't linked to them directly.

I'm not in the healthcare business, and have had very limited training in this regard, but I know that through the years I have had a lot of people come to me with problems. I know that I have helped a lot of people through some simple things and I also know that at times I have suggested to people that they get some further counselling or professional help. I also know that in many cases, that suggestion was followed. I can say that it is quite rewarding to see someone improve their life because I took the time to try to help them. I think that sometimes just knowing that someone is sympathetic and wants to help, makes a big difference. The fact that people know that someone cares is a huge thing. I have found that a lot of people want to share their problems and have someone listen to them. Often it is a conversation with themselves while looking for another opinion. But I think asking questions rather than giving answers, helps a lot too. In many respects this is what some therapists do. It is about helping people to solve their own problems. Often they may have the answer, but don't want to recognize it.

I may be wrong, but I suspect a lot of very disturbed people don't start out that way. I suspect that in many cases, mental illness is a progressive disease that just gets worse if untreated. We live in a complicated, messed up world and people have a lot of things to be disturbed about.

I am completely convinced that we have just made it harder for people to get this kind of help because there's a cost associated with it. It's easy to say, "I've worked through lots of problems in my life by myself, why can't everyone do the same?" We have become pretty self centered and don't want to help others if it is going to cost us something. That's true across the board, whether it be food, jobs, housing, health care or whatever. But as time goes by, I think we are finding that sometimes not helping others, is finding a way to in fact affect us directly.

We are currently reacting to situations and a seeking quick solutions in ways that don't impact us directly. We are willing to accept that anything is better than nothing while not really addressing the problem. But we want to feel like we did something. Gun control isn't the answer. Impacting law abiding citizens does little in the way of impacting law breakers. Guns may contribute to to these instances of violence, but they are not the root cause. Somewhat ironically, the ultimate, permanent solution that ends these instances, is usually achieved by a gun.

I am glad we are having discussion about the real root cause, being mental illness. However we need to address it in a comprehensive way and just by linking it to guns, we will achieve very little. We will likely just infringe on individuals rights in a different way and probably discourage some from seeking the help they need. We need to eliminate the "noise" from the discussion and focus on the base issue.

Jim Spence,

You know with that quote you have just proved Regan would have been in favor of this type of legislation right? Keeping guns out of the hands of the mentally ill represents an area where the "Government protests us from each other".

mj899

check this out video.today.msnbc.msn.com/today/50208495/#50208495 He did not us a rifle. 4 hand guns

Making a law against a weapon that was not even used, Just like Bush going after WMD that were not there

What point are you trying to make? The type of weapons in question were used at Aurora, The Carson City IHOP, The Westroads Mall incident (2007), The Meteor Wisconson shooting (2004), Edgewater Tech. Office shooting (2000) etc. So, this not like this is the first time this sort of thing has happened.

Large capacity magazines actually were used at Sandy Hook.

Sum Succubus, you make a blanket assumption that the girl yurned healthy on her own free will and you know that's wrong. She could geta psychiatryst certify her condition is no longer present...10 years have gone by and therapy has work. Alas, she gets her permit. You are using hyperboly, period. Illness can be cured, do you know how many times cops see revolting things? I know your agenda. Go back and suck your gun barrell

This about sums it up...

http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/01/15/graphic-31-days-later-u-s-gun-deaths-since-newtown/

Here we go. Perfect example....

MOUNT CARMEL, Pa. — A 5-year-old Pennsylvania girl who told another girl she was going to shoot her with a pink toy gun that blows soapy bubbles has been suspended from kindergarten.

Her family has hired an attorney to fight the punishment, which initially was 10 days but was reduced to two.

Attorney Robin Ficker says Mount Carmel Area School District officials labeled the girl a "terrorist threat" for the bubble gun remark, made Jan. 10 as both girls waited for a school bus.

Ficker says the girl didn't even have the bubble gun with her and has never fired a real gun. He says she's "the least terroristic person in Pennsylvania."

School district solicitor Edward Greco tells pennlive.com that officials are looking into the case. He said school officials aren't at liberty to discuss disciplinary actions
Now not only will this 5 year old not be able to purchase a weapon in the future for her 5 year old comment about a bubble gun, that an overly sensitive child took and ran with <I am sure the parents who are anti gun stirred this pot>, but she will , according to our NAtions Law, be placed on the Domestic TErrorist watch list, the Terrorist No Fly List and will have all her social media for the rest of her life put up for examination, without a warrant.

This is the thing.

If we make every statement that ever comes out of someones mouth, at any age, we create a Nation of Felons, Remember Felons give up their rights to search and seizure, simply because they are felon.

And if we make every offense a Felony we Charge our populous to not be allowed to own a weapon and we create a Nation of people who have surrendered their rights to their Bill of Rights.

You know warrants needed, Miranda s, they go away when you become a felon.

This is the Knee Jerk, Bull crap that must be stopped.

According to these laws, if a few kids on school grounds play a game of Army, all kids do. They would face immediate expulsion, Immediate Felon Charges under the Domestic Terrorist Act and be labeled for life...

Screw everyone of you who want to take a Child's talk, as well as harmless Play away from them. And if Army Game offends you, how about Cops and Robbers? Or a bunch of children making believe they play a game of Red Coats against Patriots after learning about the Revolutionary War..

Oh excuse me, they wouldn't learn about the Revolutionary War, because that includes Gun Violence, and we cannot be teaching that in our Schools can we now.

Frigging Get A Life.....

I defended this Country . so as to allow ALL people their rights. I did not defend this country so that knee-jerk overreactions cause a dissipation of our Rights for a supposed Moral agenda that is full of holes and serves to villanize innocent people.

If you want a gun ban, if you want restriction of speech or even restriction as to how a child can play, move to Afghanistan, you know the Country that shoots and beheads Girls for going to school and participating in games like soccer or shoots children for flying Kites.

Your Emotionally driven Knee Jerk Reaction will destroy this Nation.

"The proclivity to ban is the continuing manifestation of

expanding religion-driven morality at the expense of personal

liberty,"

"We don't even recognize that there exists a need not to

allow collective outrage or shame to pillage individual rights."

This is what is happening in the United States, has been for over 16 years now. It was going on before that but since "9/11" when "Everything Changed", they have been doing it right out in the open.

The above quote would not be so sad if it were not for the fact that it was said by a person in Pakistan talking about how they lost their freedoms under the rule of one group pushing their personal agenda and views upon the rest of the country.

@Sum Succubus

I agree. I believe that something needs to be done about gun violence but they're casting a wide net on the way they're going about this. Its totally unrealistic to think that we can police people's thoughts. And this may just make it less likely for people to admit to feelings of violence or the mentally ill from seeking the assistance they need, leading this law not only to fail to achieve any results at all, but perhaps to make matters even worse by turning proper treatment of mental illnesses into an even bigger challenge.

The culture of violence is so pervasive that tens of millions in this country, perhaps hundreds of millions, hear the old saw, "Guns don't kill people: people kill people", and do not think that there is any problem with that logic - like it's poetry. Guns very obviously do kill people and anything else kept warm and alive by blood and held together by soft tissue. I won't argue that the person without a gun would not opt for other lethal means to do murder.

The other key indicator in popular expression is "You'll get my guns when you pry them from my cold dead hands and not before". And that's the bullet ballet? I remember, I think it was Oliver Stone, asking rhetorically, "How different the world might have been if President Nixon and Chairman Mao had been loved by their fathers."

I cannot think of any man outside of my family ever approaching me to share that special knowledge of firearms handed down by their fathers to them. And while I was being taught gun safety and the use of firearms for hunting varmints, etc., I never heard one word about the Second Amendment. Later came teaching about self-defense, being mindful of the danger of shooting some innocent being, a person or a cow hidden by a tree or brush. Overthrowing the government? Not a priority.

I may sound fatalistic, but when gun advocates can make an argument for keeping guns that does not sound like the reactionary pukings of a blood thirsty, anti-government, gun wielding lunatic fringe, I think the world will be safer. Just say, "The gun is for sport and, God forbid, for self-defense". But I really never hear that argument. And I do worry about this culture that is so in love with gun violence that even expressing the desire to be murdered in an attack by gun violence is normal-talk.

When I hear that shrill cry for help, why do I often think "I'd be more than happy to pry that gun out of your cold hands after your dead". I'm not an evil person. Is it a normal emotional reaction to the violent scenario the speaker himself suggests? "I'll be dead, then you can take my guns". Am I motivated by a deep hidden desire to get a free gun from someone who no longer needs it? Should I take his shoes too? How 'bout his wedding ring and his wallet, can I have those too? Maybe marry his wife and raise his kids? It just doesn't seem a very helpful argument for improving our culture or an ultimatum.

Vince: you have to watch out for those "Hello Kitty" bubble guns, "you'll shoot your eye out."

The Evil Tessmacher---Way to go you you spent all that time and contradicted yourself. As far as the record goes they did not specify guns even though your interpretations says so, they said arms. they knew exactly what they were saying but I believe you do not. Tommy as you put it was as against government control over the population as he was against organized religion. If they had only wanted it to be about muskets they would have put that in there. He wanted us to be able to repel all attacks foreign or domestic.

This whole fight over gun restiction is about liberals or government getting thier foot in the door to change the current laws. It is incidious at best and the outcome is clearly predictable.

I wonder why so many agree with the fact that people who are law abiding citizens and are not criminals/unstable are being punished for crimes that they have not committed! I always thought in our Democracy that we were innocent until proven guilty, not for the simple fact that we own similar items. If that was the case we would have different laws for all of us based on the crimes of others! Sorry you must have a breathalyser in your car, because there are some that are guilty of DUI"s. Sorry, cars are banned because some do not know how to drive properly, and people have died as a result. We do not do that because it is WRONG! We need to make laws as punishments for the crimes committed, and actually ENFORCE them, no leniency, no reprieves! Our government under the guise of human rights, has allowed mentally unstable people, to make their own decisions; about their treatment,taking their meds, whether to live on the street etc.! How is someone that is classified as "currently" mentally unstable able to make a SANE decision?? Of course governmment will deny they have put some of us at risk of violence because they wanted to save money! The other simple fact is that law enforcemment are allowed to wander our streets, and they are in possession of weapons, and we give them the benefit that they are going to use them appropriately, the unfortunate fact is that they are just like the rest of humanity, and prone to the same frailties as the rest of the people in our country! They are found guilty of the very same crimes as the rest of the populace[murder, assault, burglary, etc.] This does not mean that all are criminals and that all should be penalized for the crimes of others. Only that the GUILTY should be punished. Another aspect to all this, is that the anti-gun advocates will jump on an atrocity to benefit their cause, and cry that all gun owners are responsible for what happened and they must be punished, There is always going to be news when a gun is involved in an atrocity, yet the innocent are inadvertently lumped into the vile act! What kind of news does it make to hear about joe public the law abiding gun owner, who has done nothing wrong? The only time you might actually hear of a law abiding citizen in the news is if they shot someone in self defense or the defense of another, and they better hope that the perpetrator isn't killed as they will probably be vilified! News of death,cirme etc., always outweighs the news of the good or unexciting!

So I just did some quick statistics - and it floored me. At the end will be a link to my data points, and explanations for any assumptions made.

If TODAYS date was Dec 31, 2011 and a statistician was asked to compute to probability of different mass murders for the year 2012 - the analysis would be as follows.

The probability for between 0 to 4 mass murders = 0.977194 or 97.7194%

The probability for exactly 6 mass murders = 0.00039 or 0.039% (this is roughly 1/3 of 1%)

The Probability of exactly 8 Mass Murders = 0.000000201 or 0.0000201%

In 2012 there were 8 Mass Murders

It is important to note that Chebyshev's Empirical Rule states that all data-points should lie between 2 or 3 standard deviations from the mean (most statisticians use 2 - but for conservative analysis I will do both 2 and 3)

Chebyshev's Rule at standard deviation = 2 ----> 2.385856 mass murders for 2012

Chebyshev's Rule at standard deviation = 3 ----> 3.578784 mass murders for 2012

The above statistics were created using: http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/12/14/1337221/a-timeline-of-mass-shootings-in-the-us-since-columbine/?mobile=nc

with a Mean of 1.615385 and a Standard Deviation of 1.192928

*Assumptions - The Central Limit Theorem in statistics states that when "n" is greater than or equal to 30 and approximately normal distribution can be used. We must note that although 30 is not achieved - the data-points are taken from a set of data where "n" is greater than 30. It is important to note that any portion of an approximately normal distribution is approximately normally distributed. Also note that if we did use more years ( years before 1999 ) the probabilities would diminish to an even greater degree, because mass shootings are increasing, not decreasing as time moves forward. Thereby decreasing both the mean and standard deviation.

When the school shooting occurred and people started talking about restrictions gun advocates were screaming on these boards that restricting types of weapons wasn't the answer that we needed to stop criminals and mentally ill from acquiring guns. Now they propose to do this and these same people are outraged that labeling anyone mentally ill restricts their rights. It would be nice if someone from the NRA could find one action they could support other than armed guards in every school, shopping center, theater and business.

Have you heard the latest, the Obama Administration will be deputizing a new group of Homeland Security agents to confiscate all guns, to be handed over to them voluntarily.

If you disagree and point your gun at the officers, that will be a felony, for which you will lose your right to have a gun.

FreedomOverSympathy: you must either be a mathematician or a statistician,

in either case, the people who are dying, nearly every day, are not statistics, particularly not to their parents, spouses, children and loved ones.

However, since you seem to like statistics, here is a simple question, multiple part answer:

How many dead from guns until we, as a nation, decide to end private gun ownership:

10,000,000

1,000,000

100,000

10,000

26

In my opinion, ONE IS TOO MANY.

Dirp -

My formal training is in Economics. Though I did enough math for a math minor during my bachelors for fun - and took the masters level statistics classes required to start my Ph.d in Economics.

And to answer how many deaths are needed to end private gun ownership - my answer is countably infinite deaths ---> to me guns are a symbol that gvt / nobles / authority will no longer rule with an iron first over its people. To me guns are what keep our poor fed, our freedom alive, and our cumulative hope / success as a nation.

Tell that to the parents of the next child killed.

The only thing preventing a gun owner from being a killer is opportunity.

As to your thoughts on your little gun offsetting the automatics, tanks, bazookas, helicopter gunships, jets, bombs and nuclear weapons that only governments control, you are as ignorant as you seem.

I hope you have no children, as they are more likely to die from the guns you likely own and have in your household than from any paranoid threat you may perceive from our government.

Paranoia is another sign a mental illness.

BTW: since you are an economist, have you ever read any of the studies on the economic cost to the nation of private gun ownership?

dirp - the only thing preventing anyone from killing is opportunity. A chemist can kill more people with items purchased at Wal-Mart than a tank can. Consider Timothy McVeigh. People who want to kill someone - they simply just kill. Not having a gun doesn't stop them. They simply find another way. Consider the Middle East - Suicide bombers, using children as an explosive mule - people are a balance of good and evil. It is said that Governments have killed 260,000,000 people in the last century - I will take my chances with citizens who have guns. The probabilities tell me I will live until an old man.

Moreover, You must read more - Imagine this: if tomorrow you woke up and there were 150,000,000 Russian soldiers in America ( para trooped in without anyone noticing) do you think our gov could stop them without the citizens help? Do you think they could take over our country? I believe we would be property of Russia within 7 days.

Dirp - Also I am a very responsible gun owner. My rifles are all stored with their firing pins removed. My home defense weapon is a shotgun - which I keep hung on the wall 8ft above the ground ( for them littles ones =) ) - also where I am from we teach our children what guns do very early. We take them out hunting at about 5 - 6 years old. They shoot a rabbit or a squirrel and they weep like you wouldn't believe. I hate this feeling, but they learn extremely fast what guns do; which to me is worth the tears. We give the animal a proper burial, and use it as a life long learning experience.

Moreover - citizens can and have been able to own cannons, mortars, automatic weapons (class 3) and tanks. google it.

Dirp have you thought of the economic consequences of private gun owners? I am thinking not so much. Gun owners put billions into the economy both in guns, ammo and accessories. Paranoia is another sign of illness or could be, a lot of people are paranoid about guns causing caution and wariness by those who own guns because they know the government can't be trusted as they have done nothing but bicker, fight and lie. You are more likely to die of a thousand other things other than from a gun, in fact tripping would be one of those things so are you prepared to stop walking. Your second helping of food, a car that has the ability to drive over the speed limit, they should all be outlawed by the standards put forth from the left. Leon Pinheada tries to make himself sound like a rational gun owner/hunter. Another puppet from the left. Where did all this you don't need an AR rifle to hunt a deer or as they so like to put it to sound deadly, an assault rifle! Who said anything about hunting... We can own a rifle like that because we can, we are Americans and we are law abiding americans or at least were until this administration tries to make us into criminals and steal our wealth.The elitists (politicans and cronies) have their body guards and their golden parachutes and personal rights to carry to protect themselves, again they just don't think we are equal to their majestry status and rights. Were there a litmus test for political office like they propose doctors to do to qualify gun owners then you would lose about 60% of our politicians and probably 90% of them in Chicago and Illinois. Cuomo, well I doubt he would qualify for a gun or public office, possibly he could mow lawns for a living. So keep believing their scare tactics to whip up the sentiment and don't open your mind to real world statistics or people who have a different way of life you city slickers don't understand or care to be concerned with. Hey by all means you can put your life in the hands of a cop that is only minutes away while you have seconds to live but don't try and impact my right to take care of myself and that means semi auto guns and clips with any amount of ammo. Get over it, it's not these things that are causing these issues, it's criminals.

No, it is not just the lack of opportunity. The majority of people do not have in their minds that they will kill someone. A gun owner has already formed in their mind that they will kill a person. Once that thought is complete, the next step is to obtain the means. On purchase (or gift, if that is possible) they have also already procured the means to kill. All they need is the opportunity.

In the instances you described, people used items which were designed and built for different purposes in ways which, while they could be used, is not the way it is expected to be used.

A gun is meant to be used to kill. That is its only purpose. Target shooting is simply practice killing. A properly manufactured, maintained and utilized gun will kill. A gun not fully utilized will most likely maim or permanently disable.

A person intent on killing will utilize the best weapon available to achieve that goal. A person who chooses to use suicide bombing does not have as his goal killing, it is terror, that is to put fear into the minds of the people and to destroy the symbols of that which he fears.

Since you appear to fear government, are you planning a terrorist act against that which you fear, like Timothy McVeigh?

Stop Funding: the problem has been that gun manufacturers, unlike most producers of inherently dangerous items, do not have to pay the cost of their products being used as designed. Automobile makers have to make cars that won't blow up. Drug makers have to make drugs that won't, as a probable consequence of their use, kill the patients.

Only gun manufacturers don't have to pay the consequences of guns being used for the purpose for which they are designed, in the manner in which they are designed.

If gun manufacturers had to pay a tax for each gun, or each bullet, sold or gun owners had to pay a tax, with the funds being used to reimburse the victims of the weapons (or their survivors) the incidence of guns being stolen or used in violence would be reduced.

For some reason, we have accepted that something which is designed for no other purpose than to kill is an acceptable thing to have in this modern society, and for which there is no consequence to the manufacturers. And that is simply because the manufacturers have for years bribed our politicians into writing laws which prevent the nation having those manufacturers pay the full cost of their products.

How much is a single life snuffed out before reaching puberty worth?

How about 20, 30, 50?

Dirp: "Since you appear to fear government, are you planning a terrorist act against that which you fear, like Timothy McVeigh?"

Answer: Of coarse not, have any of my comments thus far hinted toward that? If so please quote it in a response with the comment # please.

That question is as silly as the following:

So you say you want to keep children alive by banning guns? is this so you can molest them?

FreedomOverSympath: re: 1.175, you are a cruel person, forcing your children to kill innocent little bunnies. Did you name them Thumper and bury them in a field of flowers?

JK, I don't agree with your methods of teaching your children, but at least you prevent them from accessing the guns.

You are correct, you can own what is called class 3 weapons, however, between the cost of the weapon itself (because of the restrictions on manufacture) and the paperwork involved in even moving the items, it is, from a practical standpoint, not possible for people to own them.

re: 1.178, your apparent fear of goverment: from 1.170:

And to answer how many deaths are needed to end private gun ownership - my answer is countably infinite deaths ---> to me guns are a symbol that gvt / nobles / authority will no longer rule with an iron first over its people. To me guns are what keep our poor fed, our freedom alive, and our cumulative hope / success as a nation.

From that I surmised your fear of government and desire to utilize guns against it. You also brought up, chemicals killing and Timothy McVeigh, not a far stretch to simply ask the question of what your plans were.

Now you are bringing up children and molestation, why is that?

Sorry, couldn't help it.

It is possible to have a rational discussion on weapons ownership. Thank you for a pleasant debate.

As tragic as loss of life is losing my freedoms are valuable as well, we have fought and died for them since we came to this nation. Car makers do not pay for drunk driver accidents which kill and that is exactly what you are equating this to. Quite simply again this issue is one of criminals and mentally ill in 99% of the cases. I will admit I am paranoid of my government because it is no longer our government, they walk on the constitution, avoid the safeguards of a congress and senate with a bully pulpit and orders. They know these laws aren't going to help anything it is simply a power grab because they don't respect this right. After all how can we trust someone who raises taxes the middle class and about ten other things I could easily name that he lied about. It all get's swept under the rug by the media who has been instrumental in costing our kids lives by dramatizing all of this. Where is the outrage at the media for this?

It sounds like the left wants to hold gun manufacturers to a different standard. They should not be liable for their products unless they are defective, they can't be accountable for a defective owner just as no other manufacturers are.... other than tobacco, which was another money grab by the politicians. For anyone to say they didn't know what they were getting in to when they started smoking is flat out a liar.

Dirp - Your welcome, and Thank you also for your participation in this debate. It has been enjoyable.

Stop Funding: you're equating the use of a car with alcohol to using a gun to kill.

A car is not designed to kill. That is not its purpose. When used properly, a car will not kill.

A gun IS designed to kill. Properly used, it kills. When it is not properly manufactured, cleaned and maintained or used, it will most likely maim, or cause disfigurement or permanent disabilities. There is NO other purpose behind a gun.

All manufacturers, other than gun makers, are responsible for the direct foreseeable consequences of their products being used as they are designed to be used.

It is not that we want a special standard for gun manufacturers, we simply want them held to the same standard of any manufacturer of an inherently dangerous product.

thank you and good night.

This isn't gun control. This is thought control. And violation of First, Second, Fourth, Ninth and however many other amendments.

Lets have a violence tax on hollyweird movies. Lets say if they make a violent movie the first murder is a freebie.

After that a $100,000 fee is levied for each murder portrayed in the film where a gun is used.

$75,000 if a bomb is used.

$50,000 for all other acts of violent murder are portrayed.

On top of that lets have a gun shot fee impossed on them as well. For each time a gun is fired in a movie there should be a $10,000 tax.

Each time a gun is portrayed in a life threatening measure then they would have to pay a $5,000 tax.

So on and so forth. Of course we really are not going to call this a tax but instead we shall refer to it as a fee.

No one will seek any type of mental-health care from now on for fear of being reported & placed on a govt watch list.

The way Prez-0 & the Dems have imposed 'Big Brother' into our lives in 4 short years is fracking amazing.

Democrat National Committee; because Communists are still considered evil in America.

dirp

Bottom line on blaming the mentally ill and saying that only the mentally ill should be prevented from having guns is that, if you think about it at all, nearly everyone is "mentally ill" or has been at some point in their life. No psychiatrist ever "cured" anyone, the people are simply no longer manifesting symptoms of the illness (kind of like cancer patients "in remission.")

If our concern is that someone who has, or may at some point have, a mental illness should have his Right to own a gun revoked, why do we limit it to that?

Why should we allow that mentally unstable, or potentially unstable, person to drive a car, or an 18-wheeler? How about a bus or pilot a 747? Should they be allowed to work in highly technical environments like a nuclear power facility? Should they be allowed to vote?

Should they be allowed to have children?

Who will decide the parameters of the mental incapacity? The Federal government? The States? The American Psychiatric Association?

How will this affect the Americans with Disabilities Act? Will this be considered a prejudice or prevention? Will a mental restriction be permanent or temporary with periodic reviews?

Like I said in my above post, who will be willing to recertify a patient after or during treatment? If a tragedy occurs who will be blamed, the patient, the therapist, the gun manufacturer, the government for allowing the discrimination?

The Federal governments function is to protect our Constitution. It should never have any overriding power to change or limit any of our Rights. If the Federal government wants to change any of our Rights all it has to do is amend it according to the Constitutional mandates. The States, via their Constitutions, can make the appropriate restrictions or allowances much easier.

The Framer’s decided to make us a Federal Constitutional Republic for many reasons. The most important was, they knew the historic consequences of the ‘excesses of Democracy”. They understood the Republic protects the ultimate minority, the individual. A Democracy is simply mob rules.

Just as importantly they believed in federalism, thus the reason for the 9^th and 10^th amendments. They knew that a number of States all working as independent entities, but united under the banner of Constitutionally limited government and the dual sovereignty of federalism we could deal with any problem. Imagine the benefits of 50 States all as unique “incubators of ingenuity” both in private innovation and public policy.

Finally, try to fathom the hypocrisy of a Government that requires every citizen to prove they are mentally stable to be armed, but not prove they are a citizen to vote.

Just like all of our "social wars", crime, drugs and poverty, our biggest social war, the war on illiteracy is the only one that can significantly correct the others. Unless we start admitting our education system is severely failing we'll be dealing with all these problems in these irrational convoluted ways for decades.

It's almost as if government wants it that way, isn't it?

Coincidence?

Holy Crap....I am a retired Army Ranger..I was trained to seek out the Enemy and Terminate their existence...

So according to you...I haev been trained to kill my enemy..I haev weapons at my disposal, and eventhough I am just a normal joe citizen I am just waiting for the opportunity to kill?

That is the dumbest thing I have ever heard....

I have a weapon in my home for hunting, target pinking and home defense, when I travel around the country on business or for vacation with my family i carry a concealed weapon. Does that mean that all my business trips and vacations are just me looking for opportunity's to demonstrate my military craft, or as you put it my opportunity?

No it means if my family and I take a wrong turn and wind up in a less than favorable area where people who should not have guns because they mean to really use the I am protected.

Boston Mass. 2009 my family and I wound up taking the wrong exit...

We came to a light and two kids that were standing on the corner reached into their waistbands and started walking across the street towards our Vehicle.. I simply Drew my Sig .40 CAl S&W and made a motion as to "Adjust it", they saw that, they stopped and turned around.

A few lights down, I saw an officer and asked him how to get out of here and back to the by pass. He said to me "You're in the wrong neighborhood my friend, you need to get out of here fast, go this way then this way"

I told him what had happened back a few blocks and he informed me that that was the reason he was where he was, that there had been 6 car jacking in the last three weeks at that same corner.

My Son said out loud, "Daddy took his gun out we weren't scared,", at which time the officer asked me if I had a weapon, I said yes and I had a CCW for it.

He asked me to place my hands on the dash and then took me out of the car, searched the car with me and my family on the side of the road. He asked where my weapon was, I said in my side holster, he laughed. I smiled.

I said I would show him my CCW and that was all. He agreed, ran a cheek on me and said thank You.

Nice that when I stopped my family from possibly becoming a victim I was treated, me the LEGALLY IN POSSESSION GUN OWNER, like the criminal.

That is what you want?

Helpless people, and people under the fear of not only criminals but State and Fed agents as well?

The neighborhoods I am talking about are places where people obtain weapons they should not legally have obtained, nor continue to legally own., and mean to deny me the right to prosper through their thoughts of violence, not mine.

That criminal has a right to prosper and commit the crime, I have the right to exterminate his rights to break the law

In over 15 years of military service I have seen the parts of the world that have the strictest of weapons laws, and guess who owns the Weapons, the Govt and the Criminals.

Honduras is a prime example, they have a zero private gun tolerance and now they have the highest murder rate in the World. I served there and every time you saw a person with a weapon you knew they were a criminal.

Is that what we should have in this country?

By the way, the rest of my stay throughout New England was a wonderful experience..I would go back anytime.

Especially to Concord-Lexington....

YES!!!!! Without common sense and a fair mind that can process and act IN EVERY INCIDENCE then I do not believe you should have a gun. Responsibility for actions should be strictly enforced. The teabag republicraps want this right now on all social issues along with the nations debt BUT NOT GUNS, WHY? If they would have stopped their spending on two contrived wars we would not have this problem. More thinking by the gun fanatics did us in and continues to ruin our country.

This ban then should include every hollyweird writer that has ever wrote the script for a shootemup movie. There isn't anyone who has a more violent thought process than those responsible for movies like terminator, the Jason Borne trilogies, Stalone movies. Nothing can match the violence that comes out of the minds of movie writers.

ProIndividual" said:

It's important to remember too that there is no rise in mass murder...in fact it hit it's peak in 1929. It's a declining issue.

---------------------

'ProIndividual,' Your statement is NOT TRUE.

Dr. A. Charles Catania sent us a graph of the 12 deadliest mass shootings in the United States. He showed their effects cumulatively, over time, so that you could see how steep the slope has become in recent years.

http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2012/12/26/16169576-chart-before-and-after-the-assault-weapons-ban?lite

A Guide to Mass Shootings in America

There have been at least 62 in the last 30 years—and most of the killers got their guns legally.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/07/mass-shootings-map

Incorrect. If had read the article I linked to there were links imbedded in the article that show you the graphs and data you require to disprove the nonsense that mass murder, mass shootings, whether in terms of victims or killers, is on the rise. They aren't on the rise, they are on a decline:

http://reason.com/reasontv/2013/01/10/reasons-5-facts-on-guns-and-gun-violence

Are mass shootings becoming more common in United States? Brad Plumer of The Washington Post thinks so:

Of the 12 deadliest shootings in U.S. history, six have taken place since 2007. (The Newto[w]n school shooting will likely rank second on that list.) Mass killings appear to be on the upswing -- even as other types of homicides and violent crimes are becoming less frequent.

David Brooks highlighted this discrepancy back in July. For much of the 20th century there were, on average, a handful of mass killings per decade. But that number spiked in 1980, and kept rising thereafter. In the United States, there have now been at least 62 mass shootings in the past three decades, with 24 in the last seven years alone. This has happened even as the nation's overall violent crime and homicide rates have been dropping.

Plumer is conflating several stories here. The Brooks column opens with a mass murder in Germany in 1913 and refers to killings in Norway and Korea, so he's telling a global story, not simply an American one. Plumer also slips from the phrase "mass killings" to "mass shootings," but these are not the same category, as any fire marshal could tell you.

But the biggest problem with the passage is the slim evidence that the upward trend exists. As the AP pointed out this weekend,

those who study mass shootings say they are not becoming more common.

"There is no pattern, there is no increase," says criminologist James Allen Fox of Boston's Northeastern University, who has been studying the subject since the 1980s, spurred by a rash of mass shootings in post offices.

The random mass shootings that get the most media attention are the rarest, Fox says. Most people who die of bullet wounds knew the identity of their killer....

Grant Duwe, a criminologist with the Minnesota Department of Corrections who has written a history of mass murders in America, said that while mass shootings rose between the 1960s and the 1990s, they actually dropped in the 2000s. And mass killings actually reached their peak in 1929, according to his data. He estimates that there were 32 in the 1980s, 42 in the 1990s and 26 in the first decade of the century.

Fox made his point in greater detail in August. In the last three decades, he noted, the figures for gun homicides that kill at least four victims look like this:

(see graph here:

http://reason.com/blog/2012/12/17/are-mass-shootings-becoming-more-common

)

"Without minimizing the pain and suffering of the hundreds...who have been victimized in senseless attacks, the facts say clearly that [there] has been no increase in mass killings," Fox wrote. When clusters of incidents occur close together, he added, that likely reflects a mixture of copycatting and coincidence.

Since his chart ends in 2010, it doesn't address the unusually high number of casualties from mass murders that we've seen in 2012. But it does suggest that an increase this year is not an ongoing trend; or, at the very least, that it's too soon to tell a new trend from another cluster. (*) As terrible as these crimes are, they represent a very small fraction of the country's murders, and it's easy to read too much into their fluctuations, a point Michael Siegel made in a critique of a much-citedMother Jones story on the subject. (* Correction: The number of deaths from mass shootings in 2012 thus far is reportedly 68, which is actually less than Fox's figure for 2010. It is the total number of casualties -- dead and injured combined -- that appears to be higher than usual.)

In a more recent column, written after Friday's massacre of children in Connecticut, Fox argued that "if it seems like these dreadful crimes are occurring more frequently, it is really the immediacy and pervasiveness of media coverage that creates the impression. And thanks to state-of-the-art technology, it can feel as though the tragedy happened in your own backyard." Duwe has addressed the media coverage too, pointing out in a 2005 paperthat mass murders in the 1920s and '30s were more likely to take place within families or during the commission of another felony. These are not the kinds of killings that tend to attract a high level of press attention.

That said: While there's a lot to object to in the media coverage of the last few days -- the inaccuracies reported on the day of the massacre, the exploitative intrusions on grieving people's privacy -- this feeling that the crime took place in our backyard isn't a bad thing in itself. It represents empathy, and when the press amplifies our empathy, it's doing good. But it's also important for the press to give us a context for that empathy, lest those natural feelings for the victims and the people who loved them turn into an irrational fear that the next victims will be our own children or ourselves. Look at the ways so many schools locked down after Columbine: the increase in inflexible zero-tolerance policies, the speed-up in the school-to-prison pipeline. Those changes made a lot of studentsless secure, not more. And they were driven by contextless, free-floating fear. Empathy sí, paranoia no.

So what you presented is yet another case of bad methodology in an anti-gun study. It's easy to cherry pick stats or present them in a way that is going to re-affirm your preconceived viewpoint. But when stats are looked at with a fair methodology, you don't get the results the anti-gun crowd wants. I've personally pointed out the methodologial tricks used by studies, including a Harvard study, by using simple common sense and refuting their data with a study from the same school (Harvard) that used a much fairer, less tainted and slanted, methodology.

You simply can't turn off your critical thinking skills when looking at studies...you need it more than ever when doing so actually.

Last point: Of course there are more massm urders TOTATLT...the population grows....duh. The only number that mattersis the RATE (incidents per population). The RATE is declining. So, logically, there is less mass murder. The idea we should look at number of incidents and victims and not account for population is another methodological trick.

EDIT: Last point: Of course there are more mass murders TOTAL...the population grows....duh. The only number that matters is the RATE (incidents per population). The RATE is declining. So, logically, there is less mass murder. The idea we should look at number of incidents and victims and not account for population is another methodological trick.*

We're not trying to take away anyone's right to bear arms, we're only trying to take away certain types of arms that no one has any business with anyway.

We're not trying to take away anyone's right to free speech, we're only trying to take away certain types of speech that no has any business with anyway.

We're not trying to take away anyone's right to religion, we're only trying to take away certain types of religion that no has any business with anyway.

We're not trying to take away anyone's right to a free press, we're only trying to take away certain types of free press that no has any business with anyway.

You know? It sounds really damn weird when you try to make these anti-second amendment arguments apply to the first.

I am fully for protecting our 2nd Amendment right. Destroy every gun ever made and go back to the cap and ball/musket firearm. That was the top of the line weapon when the amendment was created. If you are a hunter, this will be no problem as most of us also are going back to the bow and arrow for hunting. If your ego compels you to possess and use any other firearm you have a problem mentally. After all, isn't that the real issue.

If a hundred million liberals walked down the street carrying their guns, the right wing would still believe that liberals don't own guns. This is not a GUN issue, its a Troll issue. I find it hard to believe that all these right wingers are THAT ignorant. This is all about emotion.

When the assault ban went into effect during the Clinton years (see, Brady Bill), the gov. didn't take over your rights. When George Bush let the Brady bill expire, most of you didn't even know.

I'm throwing the BS flag, penalty, 5 yards, right wing trolls, fourth down.

Side note: one of the posters here used the term "do gooders". this term has always made me laugh. that you can take a positive like doing good, and make it sound negative, is just amazing lol

george pauljohn,

Very well put.

Whiskey

We're not trying to take away anyone's right to free speech, we're only trying to take away certain types of speech that no has any business with anyway.

Try saying, "this is a hijack" in a aircraft.

We're not trying to take away anyone's right to religion, we're only trying to take away certain types of religion that no has any business with anyway.

I guess if that religion involved human sacrifice that could be a problem.

We're not trying to take away anyone's right to a free press, we're only trying to take away certain types of free press that no has any business with anyway.

You ever hear of Child Porn?

Doesn't sound weird at all.

Derek said

"Seriously. Mental health professionals are making the usual poor excuses for not doing their jobs. Just like a gun store owner who doesn't want to take the blame for selling a gun to a 17 year old, but happily took their money."

Please Derek tell me that you aren't intending to purchase a firearm. It hasn't been legal for a 17 yr old to purchase ANY firearm in this country since at least 1968. Therefore NO gun shop owner is going to sell a firearm to a 17 yr old. You've just proven yourself to be completely ignorant of the law. Since you obviously don't know beans about the law, how can anyone take your opinions about the law as valid? That's like asking a 5 year old if they can fly off the roof using a bed sheet as a cape. Have you been getting your gun laws education from the MSM again? Or those brilliant legal minds over at Huffpo who are likewise clueless. Gun sales are restricted only slightly less than prescription drugs, and in some ways more. Here's a QUICK overview of the laws already on the books.

1. No handguns may be legally sold to anyone under the age of 21.
2. No rifles or shotguns may be legally sold to anyone under the age of 18
3. No firearms made after 1898 may be sold to anyone with a felony conviction, drug addiction, adjudicated mentally deficient, misdemeanor domestic violence conviction, or a dishonorable discharge from the military.
4. All sales made by a licensed dealer, with the exception of those to holders of concealed carry permits, have to be called into the FBI NICS for approval. Concealed carry permit holders are exempt because they have already gone through a stringent background check to include being fingerprinted already.
5. Any individual breaking the laws on selling to a prohibited person can be held accountable for the violation of the law. (For example, the guy who sold the tec 9 pistol to the Columbine shooters was sentenced to 3 years in federal prison for selling a handgun to a person under 21. Since one of the two was 18, his purchase of the shotgun was legal.)
6. Anyone selling a firearm at a gun show has to insure that all appropriate laws are followed. That means that the 90% of sales that are by licensed dealers have the same background checks as if they had occurred at a store. The other 10% of sales are between individuals the same as if the buyer had answered an ad in the classifieds. The seller is still responsible to insure that the laws are followed. There is no "gun show loophole" all applicable laws have to be observed.
7. Any person buying a firearm for someone who is prohibited (straw purchase) from doing so is guilty of a felony. One of "Fast and Furious" gun runners was just allowed to plea bargain for less than 10% of the applicable penalty. Why aren't liberals more upset about the BATFE allowing hard core criminals walk?

Since the laws already on the books address all of the concerns that the MSM are screaming about, why not increase enforcement efforts versus pass new laws that infringe on the rights of tens of millions of law abiding citizens?

I have had discussions about guns with several Americans, and I have noticed an incapacity to imagine their world without guns in it - same in this thread. It is particularly mind-boggling for those of us in other Western countries, who find the link between the extreme overabundance of guns and the high level of violence in your society to be self-evident. Nothing will change until you - and I mean not the government, but each individual American - change your way of thinking, especially about handguns. Their sole purpose is to kill human beings. Forget about your "rights" and start thinking logically. Why in the world would you value such weapons?

the possession of firearms by private citizens is what allowed this country to separate itself from England. we have america now because of it. then, as now, it was understood that only allowing guns in the hands of police and military is dangerous, because they are both controlled by government. the larger the government, and the more disconnected it is from it's people (while pandering to the wealthy) the more dangerous it is for the people to allow themselves to be ruled by it

to sum up...We the people are allowed to possess firearms in order to protect ourselves from our government, among other things. and who is going to establish exactly what criteria need to be met in order to have our guns taken? government. who is going to alter those criteria behind closed doors whenever they see fit? government. who is going to now have access to confidential medical information under the pretense of security? government

Why in the world would you value such weapons?

==========

Simply, if everyone has one and everyone is trained to use one, everyone is equally safe. if only certain people have guns, they are the only ones who are safe, and those people if they chose would get to dictate to those without guns how they are to go about their lives. like England tried to do before we whipped them because we owned guns. i am not willing to be one of the ones without guns getting told what to do by the ones with the guns. sounds risky, dangerous, dumb, etc. now you may say that you have no gun and you are not being told what to do. and that is because America saved the world from Hitler, otherwise your no-gun-having butt would be typing German right now. what if your government turned on you (you as in your country's citizens) or a foreign one did? would you like to be defenseless? what do you do in that situation? well, quite simply, you would shut up and get in the truck like they told you. not me

Since the laws already on the books address all of the concerns that the MSM are screaming about, why not increase enforcement efforts versus pass new laws that infringe on the rights of tens of millions of law abiding citizens?

============

because this is not about law or enforcement or public safety, this is about our government gaining the ability to legally intrude into private confidential medical information. if this gets through the system, the next thing that will happen is that "for public safety" they will be forcing medications on anyone who the government has deemed "unstable"

you do know that the term "unstable" could be twisted to apply to damn near everyone, right?

We the people are allowed to possess firearms in order to protect ourselves from our government, among other things.

Actually we are not, that is a lie spread by the gun cult.

The well Regulated Militia is under the control of the Government.

#1 is the National Guard - it is our Militia.

#2 are the State Defense Forces found in a few of the States. The State defense force is also controlled by the State.

The are no other Well Regulated Militias allowed by the 2nd amendment.

Simply, if everyone has one and everyone is trained to use one, everyone is equally safe. if only certain people have guns, they are the only ones who are safe,

Nobody is talking about eliminating firearms except the gun lobby. They are trying to frighten people into a false threat - a common technique used by cults.

The only discussion is whether there is any need for semiautomatic weapons with high capacity magazines.

No law abiding citizen needs those kinds of weapons. The Gun Lobby is determined to make people paranoid. It's that cult trick again.

Honestly nobody in America needs to have the kind of fear of their government that people had in the days of Monarchies.

Yes we do need to be aware of corrupt officials but because America has a revolution at every election those people don't have the power of yesteryear - and if you did shoot one of them you would end up in prison with almost no rights.

No law abiding citizen needs those kinds of weapons. The Gun Lobby is determined to make people paranoid. It's that cult trick again.

Tell that to the victims of a bear trying to break into their car or RV, or trying to drag them off in their tent so it can eat them for dinner.

Try telling that to the riot victims in California after police abandoned the neighborhoods in fear.

Tell that to someone who is facing murderous criminals intent on victimizing and brutally killing.

What if it is you?? Will you just lay your head down on the chopping block and accept your fate?

The pacifist attitude needs to go away, we should not accept being the victim and fight back.

Tell that to the victims of a bear trying to break into their car or RV, or trying to drag them off in their tent so it can eat them for dinner.

Again:

Nobody is talking about eliminating firearms except the gun lobby. They are trying to frighten people into a false threat - a common technique used by cults.

We have been shooting bears before automatic weapons with high capacity magazines were ever even thought of.

You have obviously been brainwashed by the gun cult into believing your Ruger .44 mag revolver will be taken from you.

PS bear spray works too. The best idea is to keep your food outside of your tent in a safe. Change your clothes and wash after eating. Don't bring your dog into Grizzly country. Sleep well.

Tell that to someone who is facing murderous criminals intent on victimizing and brutally killing.

Use a shotgun.

What if it is you?? Will you just lay your head down on the chopping block and accept your fate?

I'm 60 years old. Have hiked and backpacked into the back country. I have had jobs that put me in some pretty bad neighborhoods - with out of state plates. I have NEVER felt threatened. Now that I am a Christian it doesn't matter.

2 Corinthians 5:8 We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.

A Christian has nothing to fear.

I have never been a victim and as a Christian I never will.

That's not what Freud thought (granted I don't care for Freud), nor the Dalai Lama, nor Marthin Luther King Jr.

I am sorry that you feel that way about gun owners, I know a lot of them (in my State everyone can carry a concealed weapon without a permit), they are teachers, firefighters, nurses, truckers, lawyers, engineers, doctors, etc. All decent and reasonable people who feel everyone should have the right to protect themselves and their family.

"A fear of weapons is a sign of retarded sexual and emotional maturity". - Sigmund Freud

"But if someone has a gun and is trying to kill you ... it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun." - Dalai Lama

" ... the right to defend one's home and one's person when attacked has been guaranteed through the ages by common law." - Martin Luther King

I don't think we're afraid of guns, we're just pissed off because the NRA and folks that support them have gotten so loose that they are killing more humans than the wars we fight against our enemies. Since these folks either don't care or don't know, we are here to help because we DO know how to stop killings lie these. Remove the ways from the means.

I question the caliber of people you associate with mcbarker, if your statement is indeed truthful. I have met all types of people during my law enforcement career, both ends of the spectrum. I can only tell you my experience is opposite from yours.

I would try to dissuade you from forming preconceived notions of the "types" of people belonging to certain groups. Having bias leads to close mindedness, lack of open dialog and a real inability to look outside your paradigm. You can create a self fulfilling prophecy.

Leave your sex life out of this.

We have the right to bear arms and we have the duty to protect our citizens. These laws are new and will probably be revamped. We are learning. As a person who doesn't own a gun, I am glad that people do. Never know when one is going to need protection. We do need ti keep guns out of the hands if unstable people. Somehow, the laws will change so that only unstable people are reported.

mcbarker:

Seems to me that the bar is set way too low as it is. Most of the gun owners I know, or have spoken to, apparently use them as a substitute for a dysfunctional, or inadequate reproductive organ... and no, anticipating the wisecracks, I never saw any of their wee wee-wees.

But, in addition to all my guns I also own a huge pickup truck which, of course, is proof positive I've got a huge johnson.

what a NO ARGUMENT lie! making things up about others now? AND CHARLIE, if you're so PISSED OFF then how come you are not going after the CRIMINALS,another scared sheep going after the SOFT TARGET(just like these mass shooters do!) you cannot see the forest by the trees,no? you are not really pissed off are you,or gang violence would be the topic(not going after law-abiding people),after all THEY are the REASON the gun stats are this high. i am glad you are afraid of guns because you are an adam lanza in the making! and leaving this up to phycologists', their diagnoses are MOSTLY CONJECTURE ( i for one do not trust ANY of these individuals to make a PROPER diagnoses),but hell we should give all the liberal ideas serious thought, and then throw them in the trash where they BELONG!

Anna, I also live in a state where you don't need a ccw permit any longer. You can also open carry. I don't understand why so many people are afraid of guns. I have both open carried and concealed carried my gun. I will protect myself and my family. Gun control laws will not prevent criminals from getting what they want. If they want a gun that will fire more than 10 rounds, they WILL GET IT. Nothing will stop them.

Can you complete the sentence: "I need an assault weapon because . . . "?

If so, you are I-N-S-A-N-E. There is no sane reason to own an assault weapon unless you think terrorism or sedition is sane.

Easy, eh?

-Anna-:

That's not what Freud thought....

"A fear of weapons is a sign of retarded sexual and emotional maturity". - Sigmund Freud

Ah, yes. "Doctor" Sigmund Freud. The "doctor" who never saw a mental condition he didn't prescribe cocaine for. Yeah, let's use him for a source of insight.

Freud: The mental health community's most respected individual who, today, couldn't get a job as a janitor because he couldn't pass the drug test.

Sort of like using OJ as the source of information on the proper use of cutlery.

Really mcbarker ya think so!! Tell that to the x military and police that carrys firearms. What a troll. Head to afgan or downtown LA or even downtown Cincinnati at night. I bet you dont have even have a set the size of peas. Freakin troll

@charlie we're just pissed off because the NRA and folks that support them have gotten so loose that they are killing more humans than the wars we fight against our enemies.

Really, can you provide proof that the NRA and those who support them are doing this? Who did they kill? You, are one of the reasons we have guns. You accuse people of something that you have no proof of. Were your ancestors involved in the witch hunts in New England? That is the looniest comment I've ever read

@ bill austin

Only military or police have assault rifles. Or special permit holders. I'm glad you know so much about firearms. NOT

jay- charlie is just projecting his "passive aggressive" nature,you know the type,too afraid to say anything to your face but don't turn around. there are alot of HIS TYPE in this country(i'm profiling just like YOU ANTI-GUN PEOPLE DO). make up stuff and don't take this conversation anywhere,except BAN,BAN,BAN! and oh yeah,let's give these "doctors" the right for determination as to who should be able to get a gun,when they do nothing in their "profession" to address their patients needs(except alot of DRUGGING of the patient,"there now....all better little johny!") i wouldn't have these DRUG PUSHERS tie my shoes!

Bill-Austin

Can you complete the sentence: "I need an assault weapon because . . . "?

Jay sort of posed the question but let's try this...

Bill can YOU DEFINE what an assault weapon is... not models but specific characteristics. When you manage that we can have a discussion... A debate cannot be held if the topic is not defined.

i'd like to see some psych tests on the anti gunners here. that would be hilarious.

id also like to see a study on the political affiliation of "our" prison population.

i think some self righteous do-gooders would be surprised.

@trust_verify,

no don't be asking for facts, that will just result in more animosity of the self righteous do-gooders.

you know, those who want to pass some gun laws even though theey have no idea what it is they want to pass ?

what was that one recent survey of interest ? something to the effect most amrican want tougher gun laws, then on the flip side, these very same "most americans" have no concept of what the current gun laws are.

but, by golly, they will stamp their feet and make chest pounding declarations as to why certain inanimate objects they can't define should be outlawed. not to mention anyone who wants one of objects is crazy.

arizonamom12

Anna, I also live in a state where you don't need a ccw permit any longer. You can also open carry. I don't understand why so many people are afraid of guns. I have both open carried and concealed carried my gun. I will protect myself and my family. Gun control laws will not prevent criminals from getting what they want. If they want a gun that will fire more than 10 rounds, they WILL GET IT. Nothing will stop them.

Agreed 100%.

mc-barker....your post is a perfect example of a person with violent or irrational thoughts.

BILLY AUSTIN.....I need an assault STYLE weapon because "of people like you, who scare me more than terrorists or criminals".

Wow mcbarker, I bet you are hard to be around.

@!$: "serious thought"? Coming from you? A painfully obvious trend here is the use of caps and multiple exclamation marks by those that are apparently anti-gun law proponents. Just an observation based on numbers.

Just too far out and too easy to fix. Anyone with a history of mental illness over ----- period old must pass a psychiatric exam and thorough background before being cleared to purchase.

mcbarker is probably just another women poster using a male sounding name to hide the fact that it is a "she". There are tons of them around here and they use different names too. I guess they think a male opinion somehow carries more weight when talking about guns...

Women the same sex that benefits the most from guns. Guns that allow women to be more equal to men physically, yet many women hate. How else can a 100 pound woman protect herself or her children from a 200+ or so pound man? I do not weigh 200 pounds, but even with my size and muscles could put a hurting on the average women if I wanted to, and most men could do so also. A gun, mace, pepper spray, etc. is the only way you are ever going to be "equal" and make up the extra 50 to 100 pounds of muscle. Getting rid of the tools that make you equal to others is just stupid.

Want to see how well my organ works? Bet it would more then put a smile on your face even though I would probably have to think about another better looking woman. How many rapes did guns prevent last year? How much more likely is a women to get raped in Australia or Britain? How many more homes get broken into while people are still home compared to here in the U.S.? I guess you like having strangers in your house while you sleep huh? I guess you one of those women that does not mind getting raped and actually enjoys it.

I do not hate women, but I am not going to walk around on eggshells or kiss your a$$es. I am not getting anything from you in return so why should I treat you "special" or any different then others? You wanted to be equal to men did you not? Well it is time to get some thicker skin, and stop getting so butt hurt over every little thing that gets said. If you want to be treated like ladies or women then that is not "equal" now is it? If you are getting special treatment and are getting chased after then is that equal either? NO.

Why is it ok to cheat on your husband and think he will be alright with it? WTF about marriage and "until death"? Don't get married to a crazy jealous guy in the first place and sure as hell do not cheat on him. Why not divorce him BEFORE you have sex with someone else. Why do you dress up all week long for strangers more then your partner at home? Why does your partner get seconds and is expected to chase after you, want you, tell you how sexy you are in your sweat pants after you have not showed all weekend or done your hair. Maybe if every man that has not already had sex with you was not trying to stick their dick in you all week long while you are at work, you would treat your partner at home better. How F***ING hard is that to not have sex with someone? Why do you always have to cheat and not expect a man to get pissed? If you did not cheat on him he would not try to kill you. If a man cheats on you all hell breaks loose. How many women file for divorce? There cannot be that many bad men out there, just a bunch of picky bitchy women that cannot make up their mind and that are never happy is all.

What happened to our families in America? What happened to our morals? Liliths...

Bill-Austin

Can you complete the sentence: "I need an assault weapon because . . . "?

If so, you are I-N-S-A-N-E. There is no sane reason to own an assault weapon unless you think terrorism or sedition is sane.

No, I am quite sane, and own more than one AR. They are locked in my safe while not in use. They serve to defend against animals, two and four legged.

What's more sane, letting criminals take everything you have and then letting them kill you, or fighting back and taking some of them with you, if not scaring them away?

Asking me why I need an AR is like asking you why you need a knife in the kitchen. They are far too dangerous for anyone, just look at the death rate from kitchen knives!

I have a right to own firearms, AR's too, they aren't fully auto either, by existing regulation no less. Just as you have a right to own a kitchen knife to do your cutting work. Just because you think I don't need something, doesn't mean I don't. Just because you don't need or want something, doesn't mean you can tell me I can't.

TruthBeTold1226

I would like to see a "random" mental test on about 100 NRA members. Out that 100 I am sure we would wound up with at least 85% mentally unstabe.

I'm calling BS on that. That's is total conjecture and has no basis in fact, and you have not done any research to support your ridiculous notion. I just love it when people make up fake statistics.

Here are some results of NRA lobbying efforts.

The truth about the Fast and Furious scandal - Fortune Features

Bloomberg Unveils Videos of Arizona Gun Show Sting - WNYC

This law doesn't surprise me, and I'd say it fits New York very well. After all, look at their long standing track record for involuntary commitments - it takes little more than a neighbor's phone call to the authorities to result in someone being plucked from their home and held for an indefinite amount of time if they're the slightest bit unusual in any way. And, let's face it, New York is the state of the Sullivan Law, driven by a gangster politician looking to make the criminal careers of the 'boys' in his district easier after some of their intended victims started to defend themselves from being robbed. When I saw the article yesterday about the new NY state law being initially written without an exception for police officers having magazines greater than 7 rounds, I thought they shouldn't bother to fix it - keep ol' Senator Sullivan proud! Hey, he's only been dead a hundred years now...

Unfortunaly this is what happens when we have bigger govrnment. Bigger governmnet means less freedoms and that just the way it is. We faught the British in the Revoluntionay war so we could have less government and more freedoms. Times are changing back in to the way they were and we are losing our freedoms. America is susspose to be where we have freedom but the government is in our lives more and more everyday.

it wont be long till only mentally unstable people will have guns.

Charlie295522, when they did your lobotomy I think they missed a piece.

I am going to believe in a guy who can't handle a 16once soda? The giving away and sales of weapons to foreign nationals is in the hundreds of millions worth of armament. That has been going on longer than I have been alive. Some even trained in US with automatic weapons supplied by your government to invade another country. This has occurred more than just one time. That point makes it more imperative the American populace are to be armed.

The most wonderful part of all of this - and I really, really can't wait to start railing on lots of people - is the new "bar" that will be set for those who we consider to have mental illness. My teammate, who is all for these measures, threatened to beat up his step daughter's father for making the little girl's life miserable. Violent thoughts? OMG!!! Freakin' psycho - I don't want to work with him, that dude is unstable.

Just sayin'. Let the witch hunt begin.

Gun control laws will not prevent criminals from getting what they want. If they want a gun that will fire more than 10 rounds, they WILL GET IT. Nothing will stop them.

Some people will run stop signs even though there is one at every intersection. That doesn't mean stop signs are pointless.

"Since you liberal haters don't seem to care about the mentally ill (you cut the budgets for mental health as one of the first items on the chopping block)"

Are you mentally ill? It isn't liberals that want cuts to social programs from the budget. Before these shootings, all I heard from the right was screaming about social programs, including mental health services, and that we can no longer afford to take care of everyone. Now all of sudden when you think your gun "rights" are in jeopardy, the right has this big concern about the mentally ill and their ability to receive help.

RTyp0

Some people will run stop signs even though there is one at every intersection. That doesn't mean stop signs are pointless.

Your right. but having one at every corner is excessive

and if some people will run stop signs, the only people getting anoyed and having to stop at even sign are the ones that would stop for ONE stop sign.. or even stop for no stop sign to be safe.

So more stop signs in that case would make NO difference. Except to make someone feel good that they got another sign up.

MCQ12, no one is saying have a stop at every corner, or the equivalent thereof when talking about guns. However, the time for throwing up our hands and saying nothing can be done about gun violence ended with Sandy Hook. These types of attacks have become all too common, and doing absolutely nothing is not the answer.

Dave: with regard to the politics of "our" prison population, you haven't heard or read much, prisoners can't vote, and in most states, former felons can't either. So, in both cases, I would hazard a guess that their political affiliation is NONE, or, as some like to call it, independent (although most independents are simply Republicans who are angry with the religious agenda of the party and no longer want to be affiliated with the GOP.)

So I just did some quick statistics - and it floored me. At the end will be a link to my data points, and explanations for any assumptions made.

If TODAYS date was Dec 31, 2011 and a statistician was asked to compute to probability of different mass murders for the year 2012 - the analysis would be as follows.

The probability for between 0 to 4 mass murders = 0.977194 or 97.7194%

The probability for exactly 6 mass murders = 0.00039 or 0.039% (this is roughly 1/3 of 1%)

The Probability of exactly 8 Mass Murders = 0.000000201 or 0.0000201%

In 2012 there were 8 Mass Murders

It is important to note that Chebyshev's Empirical Rule states that all data-points should lie between 2 or 3 standard deviations from the mean (most statisticians use 2 - but for conservative analysis I will do both 2 and 3)

Chebyshev's Rule at standard deviation = 2 ----> 2.385856 mass murders for 2012

Chebyshev's Rule at standard deviation = 3 ----> 3.578784 mass murders for 2012

The above statistics were created using: http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/12/14/1337221/a-timeline-of-mass-shootings-in-the-us-since-columbine/?mobile=nc

with a Mean of 1.615385 and a Standard Deviation of 1.192928

*Assumptions - The Central Limit Theorem in statistics states that when "n" is greater than or equal to 30 and approximately normal distribution can be used. We must note that although 30 is not achieved - the data-points are taken from a set of data where "n" is greater than 30. It is important to note that any portion of an approximately normal distribution is approximately normally distributed. Also note that if we did use more years ( years before 1999 ) the probabilities would diminish to an even greater degree, because mass shootings are increasing, not decreasing as time moves forward. Thereby decreasing both the mean and standard deviation.

Hey Bill Austin: Complete the following sentence. I need a car that can do over the speed limit because...... If you have one of these cars or can complete that sentence you are either a mass murderer or terrorist. There is no sane reason for having one of these....

OK now I am sane enough to understand just how stupid that little scenario was... it was at minimum as stupid as your post about why anyone needs an assault rifle. It's America dude for just a little while longer, I have one because I can. You want to be a Cuban go live in Cuba or better yet go lick Chavez's boots.

Truthbetold: You sound like a bigot and likely a racist slapping groups into a classification. With a mentality like that I am inclinded to say you don't have any common sense and likely are in the upper end of a welfare recipient no ability to keep a job let alone a good one and with an IQ similar to what you accuse gun owners of having. That pretty much puts you into the class of not deserving any credibility at all. Cya douche

We're not trying to take away anyone's right to bear arms, we're only trying to take away certain types of arms that no one has any business with anyway.

We're not trying to take away anyone's right to free speech, we're only trying to take away certain types of speech that no has any business with anyway.

We're not trying to take away anyone's right to religion, we're only trying to take away certain types of religion that no has any business with anyway.

We're not trying to take away anyone's right to a free press, we're only trying to take away certain types of free press that no has any business with anyway.

You know? It sounds really damn weird when you try to make these anti-second amendment arguments apply to the first.

We're not trying to take away anyone's right to free speech, we're only trying to take away certain types of speech that no has any business with anyway.

Try saying, "this is a hijack" in a aircraft.

We're not trying to take away anyone's right to religion, we're only trying to take away certain types of religion that no has any business with anyway.

I guess if that religion involved human sacrifice that could be a problem.

We're not trying to take away anyone's right to a free press, we're only trying to take away certain types of free press that no has any business with anyway.

You ever hear of Child Porn?

Doesn't sound weird at all.

NRA= Not Really American. it was set up by the commies who want america to tear itself apart. Hey look! it's working!

Whiskey: you name explains your post. when the constitution was written, there was no such thing as a clip or magazine. all ARMS where muzzle loaded. So in fact, you only have the rights that "we the people" agree on. And right now, most of America does not agree with you.

Gandhi defeated the whole might of the English empire without a single gun. The Russian people defeated the commie empire with out a single gun. Although come to think of it, when hippies protested at Kent state, the soldiers had no trouble shooting them dead. kinda like when red china troops ran tanks over students in red square. hmmmm Think for a change.

thetrainables

MCQ12, no one is saying have a stop at every corner, or the equivalent thereof when talking about guns.

Actually that's were your headed. each time something happens you add another stop sign to make yourself feel better.. It never fixes the problem just adds more stops

However, the time for throwing up our hands and saying nothing can be done about gun violence ended with Sandy Hook. These types of attacks have become all too common, and doing absolutely nothing is not the answer.

Your right, do something that will make a difference - that will take money and work. Don't do the lazy and easy thing of placing blame on a object (gun) and making useless laws.

Start making it a crime NOT to report mental illness issues and get people help

Get rid of lawyers that don't care about the public good and just see dollar signs

that's a start that will do something.. not hurt law abiding citizens

We're not trying to take away anyone's right to free speech, we're only trying to take away certain types of speech that no has any business with anyway.

Try saying, "this is a hijack" in a aircraft.

We're not trying to take away anyone's right to religion, we're only trying to take away certain types of religion that no has any business with anyway.

I guess if that religion involved human sacrifice that could be a problem.

We're not trying to take away anyone's right to a free press, we're only trying to take away certain types of free press that no has any business with anyway.

You ever hear of Child Porn?

Doesn't sound weird at all.

=================================

did you happen to notice JOregon that all of your responses to the "We're not trying to..." statements involved actions that infringed on the rights of others, which is why they are crimes. you do know your rights end where they inhibit the rights of others, right? for instance, taking away one's right to free speech for no apparent reason is a civil rights violation...HOWEVER, taking away one's right to free speech when it is used to threaten the safety and lives of other people is appropriate and necessary in order for EVERYONE to be free

How does saying, "This is a Hijack", infringe on the rights of others? It is not the action of Hijacking it is only saying a few words.

Semiautomatic weapons with High capacity magazines instill the same fear.

Try walking downtown with such a weapon.

False Flag, Shmalse shag! Building 7, shmilding klevin!

Wow!!! Such dribble.

Probably one of the only sensible posters here! At least the wool is pulled from his eyes... The government is designed to put blame on others and focus off them on to other situations than theirs. The governments saying is "LIE! LIE! LIE!"

Heres more kool-aid and the name tag with "Sheep" on it. Have a good gassing, errrr afterlife...

When has our government ever lied or pulled one over on us?...lets start with JFK shooting, thats early enuf in our history that most people have heard about it....you could start in 1776, but most of the people posting here don't, or never read their history...

anna: Whom are the notables you believe deserve respect?

I have already given up several Swiz Army Knives to airport security and if you can believe this, US Navy boat tours. I always carry one, have never had the desire to use them to cut somebody-who-deserved-it's throat, think of them as all purpose tools, am reasonably sane... yet must put them in check in luggage on an airplane, or hike back to my car before I board the USS Constitution. Like many regulations, this one and the topic at hand, are poorly thought out. The knife ban on commissioned ships is just plain stupid and annoying but the present effort at mental health classification will probably prove to be harmful and counter productive. (Trying to think of what I could do with an 18th century sailing ship and a Swiz Army Knife, any ideas?)

Just go and take your shower will you, pay no attention to the guards they are here to protect you!

its a good thing we can always trust our leaders, because once we don't have the ability to protect ourselves we will be 100% dependent on them to protect us. that's why they want to build more facilities to house us so they can group us all together and protect us.

come on people follow me Utopia is just around the corner, their through that hole in the wall single file now go on in keep going don't hold up the line, I'll be right behind you.

Its so exzillerating to watch our Nation move forward.

under the new proposed rules only criminals will have guns because none of the rest of us will be allowed to posses one, I threatened my brother with bodily harm back in 1956 so I'm out and I punched him so there is a history of domestic Violence, yep only criminals will have guns I guess you can call that job security for the criminals,

I have a Idea lets take two cities of equal population, employment, relitive climate and disarm one city while the other city is armed and trained in gun safety and awarness where every citizen will be required to carry a gun at all times. give each of them the same no of police and watch them over a period of 5 or ten years and see what becomes of each city, that should prove if they are bad or bennificial.

D Buck... If I have it right that experiment has already been done, London and any big city in the US. Even a city like the big apple with its big bad reputation is now safer than Chicago and LA because of gun regulation. And the idea to require every citizen to be armed at all times is about as bad as it gets, but thanks for bringing it up, now I don't feel so stupid for floating the idea that all bullets should be micro-tagged and registered. That way in your well armed city of tomorrow when somebody has a psychotic breakdown and blows away a nun it would be a straight forward process to go to a data base and find out who purchased that bullet. That is unless your nun had a Bushmaster tucked away under her habit.

Who would want to live in Dodge City? That place still has a bad reputation because of gun deaths.

Exactly. I dont want to ever have the desire to protect my family from a corrupt government! Desiring to protect my family is sadly an indicator of something "wrong upstairs".

Carrol, I hope you aren't serious. That is probably the most assanine thing I've ever heard.

CarrolQuigley,

Exactly. I don't want to ever have the desire to protect my family from a corrupt government!

If the government is corrupt, (and what human institution that had been around for a long while isn't, to one degree or another) the idea of protecting yourself from violence it may do to you or your family is silly.
It's like a criminal thinking he can survive a SWAT team by being violent against it.

It would make far more sense to use your constitutional rights to peaceable change the government you seem afraid of...become educated on the issues and participate in the political process.

Unlike suicide, guns are a short term solution to a long term problem.

Once the government is overthrown and the bad guys a have all been killed off, will you then throw away your guns... or will you always feel the need to be ..."vigilant"?

Where is line between being vigilant and paranoid?

Personally, I find those who think the government is coming for their guns crossed that line quite a while ago and have themselves become part of the problem their paranoia feeds off, rather than representing any rational solution to our national violence .

i believe she is being SARCASTIC,paul. alot of people think gun owners can't be "normal" but yet their views are? they are the ONLY ones who can have (ir)rational thoughts,i just have to laugh(even though,pushing your agenda onto someone who doesn't feel the same is NO LAUGHING MATTER). i do not like abotions,they should ALL BE BANNED! (i am a man) i DON'T need them so noone else should be able to get one!(now libs,take out that abortion word and put in gun in it's place,even if YOU don't need it,doesn't mean someone else shouldn't HAVE it,and YOU have NO RIGHT PUSHING YOUR AGENDA onto someone else!

You dont have to be violent with SWAT, just smart.....Aim for the head as there is less protection lol You can collapse this if you "politically correct" ones feel the need if you do not find the sarcasm/humor in it...Get that d*ck outta your asses and lighten up!

Billy-Brock....with that statement you definetely fail the test.

Culheath,

"Personally, I find those who think the government is coming for their guns crossed that line quite a while ago and have themselves become part of the problem their paranoia feeds off, rather than representing any rational solution to our national violence ."

Didn't Cuomo state that confiscation was a valid option? I know he backed off after his advisors told him it was a bad idea, but he did say it.

culheath- if you have to ask or project your "if" this goverment is corrupt,wake up please,there's something going on in the REAL life. you are saying "if" as "if" they are not! look to the politicians and SERIOUSLY RETHINK your so-called "argument". and stop trying to take the right of the people who would be SAVING YOU from a corrupt(sic) goverment away. NO ARGUMENT "if" you don't think we have a corrupt goverment,because we do(look around)

just another face in the crowd

Culheath,

"Personally, I find those who think the government is coming for their guns crossed that line quite a while ago and have themselves become part of the problem their paranoia feeds off, rather than representing any rational solution to our national violence ."

Didn't Cuomo state that confiscation was a valid option? I know he backed off after his advisors told him it was a bad idea, but he did say it.

But the reality is, he backed off the idea of confiscation, right? So your argument is self-defeating.

----------------------

@!$%#_you

culheath- if you have to ask or project your "if" this goverment is corrupt,wake up please,there's something going on in the REAL life. you are saying "if" as "if" they are not! look to the politicians and SERIOUSLY RETHINK your so-called "argument". and stop trying to take the right of the people who would be SAVING YOU from a corrupt(sic) goverment away. NO ARGUMENT "if" you don't think we have a corrupt goverment,because we do(look around)

Re-read my post please...I didn't argue the government isn't corrupt...in fact I argued that any large organization has the tendency over time to become corrupt. My argument was that thinking armed violence as a means of dealing with that corruption against an empire on the scale of the US government is naive, suicidal and incredibly unhelpful. It's like poking a mean dog with a stick.

The US government was nowhere near proportionately as well armed against the Confederacy in the mid-1800's as it is today. It's not just fire power either, it's a whole array of tactical advantages such as control of means of communications across the board and the ability to shut down entire power grids and/or transport.

People who would suggest their personal arms are some sort of safeguard against a US government tyranny are deluded if not outright foolish.

Culheath,

I am not debating whether personal arms could defend one against the might of the military. I am debating your claim that anyone who thinks the government is coming for their guns are "part of the problem that their paranoia feeds off".

Cuomo's statement pretty much validates their concern, doesn't it?

culheath: #5.3 - very well said. I have no fear of government take-over as long as free elections are held. Why not vote candidates in or out of office? Some of us, even with the option, clearly prefer violence to democracy.

culheath- i would have to agree with alot of your post,but again the men and women of our military take an OATH to protect the constitution against ALL foriegn and domestic oppression of said constitution( i have a "feeling" that my nephews and nieces serving would UPHOLD that OATH.) YOU are right that it would be a BATTLE but not a battle well fought, ask other nations doing it RIGHT NOW. your complacancy is ALLOWING this goverment to get worse( one thing i never say is "it can't get any worse" about ANYTHING). i must be deluded as to my ex-military friends and familys abilities? how about the millions of ex-military i don't know,they're not CAPABLE?

Cuomo's statement pretty much validates their concern, doesn't it?

There's a difference between vigilance and paranoia. I have no problem with people being vigilant against incursions against their civil rights. I do have a problem when any move toward sensible gun control becomes is automatically assumed to be reason to panic.

I pretty much agree with you but still think that extreme measures being proposed by politicians like Cuomo will stall any movement toward sensible measures. There are extremists on both sides of this debate. Hopefully the people in the middle will come up with a solution everyone can live with.

The same people who are calling people who don't trust government paranoid are the same ones who recently said, 'they aren't coming for your guns'. Oh, but now they ARE.

Look who was wrong now. Think about it.

Can we trust these lefties?

The answer is: NO!

Culheath -

You pretty much blew any credibility you might have had when you posted above:

"Just as there are parole boards, there can be adjudicating panels which can after review of evidence presented, lift whatever gun ownerships bans have been put on a person. That would allow some fairness to the situation while also maintaining some degree of risk management on behalf of a culture that is presently experiencing a completely out of control gun culture." (emphasis mine)

Great example. We've regularly seen how well those groups function (why just yesterday, in fact).

Your faith in experts and government is truly touching.

Hilarious.

Guns have been getting confiscated for decades already. This is nothing new. Like that politician in SC, or was it NC, who had a loaded gun in his car when he was arrested for DUI.

Like any time a house is raided by the police. All guns are confiscated. You break the law you lose you gun. Just like DUIs where you lose your license. All gun owners should be licensed and insured.

why the license and insurance? explain. you already negated the need in the same post-miklkit

Sex and violence are dangerous to, are you going to regulate that also? Make sure you get a permit before you watch or do either. Tax anyone who depicts or participates in those pursuits. License and Insurance ? Mental health screening? What can be depicted as normal behavior and who decides. If it is not morals then what? Hypothetically if I use movie quotes in conversation like "Do you feel lucky" and other such phrases, by law are they construed as a threat or remark?

I know if I said that isn't a threat its a promise. That has already been interpreted as a threat by courts.

Culheath; I am sorry Buddy but you are so far off base its almost funny, or verysad you need to take a crash course in reasoning, nothing you are saying makes any sense, governments are turning bad every day and people are overthrowing Governments all the time, I saw a house cat chasing three dogs the other day sh!t happens! what is going on in the world is real and unpredictable. our leaders in this case city state and federal are doing allot of radical things that are not being thought through and are doing more long term damage to our Nation then they are good because they are acting irrationally and not thinking, they are passing laws based on feelings not facts and they are missing the real reasons for the problems in short they are only going to make things worse. now that is something to worry about, we have the wrong people calling the shots here, that is a fact our leaders are turning into dictators and shoving their crap at us just open your eyes and look this is all happening to fast and in inappropriateways its not being done properly. and you people don't care well will you care when its something that effects you directly and the politicians pull the same style of forcing it on you. the president and the NY Governor are not supposed to be dictators but they are acting like dictators. they are acting like college activist jumping to the call saving the world from its self, I don't want that in a leader in fact that is not how a real leader leads Obama has always led by getting behind and pushing and I have always had a problem with him doing that, no real leader leads from behind by pushing, the reason I don't follow him as a leader is because he does not lead, he does not reason, he does not think things through, he acts on feelings and he does not do a good and thorough job, the only thing he is good at is dismantling this nation and dividing the people. Maybe some day you will wake up and realize the mistakes maybe. but till you wake up there is no hope, so please wake up get out of the Poppy field and clear your head. now do you know what is responsible for the down fall of every democracy in history, socialism. yes social programs and bad leaders.

Guns should be regulated just like cars are regulated. License, insurance, safety inspections, the whole 9 yards. Then maybe you gun nuts will do something about the people selling guns to criminals by the truckload.

D Buck-2239568,

Interesting view...we differ.

As someone else said: If a car and a knife are as dangerous as a gun, why do you need gun?

tim- there are already laws in place that REQUIRE a health official to notify authorities should they deem them(their patient) a threat to themselves or others. this is a dangerous proposal,in that the blame will be shifted to the doctor,they will not want to take a chance and there-by claim MOST of their patients should not have guns to cover their own ass. they already misdiagnose ALOT of people,should we give them THIS RIGHT? i think not.

I have no problem with that. If someone feels they have been listed unfairly, they can appeal, and get a second opinion. But better safe than sorry. It's time gun owners were held responsible for guaranteeing the safe use of their guns. It's time we placed the safety of the public ahead of the individual's right to bear arms.

There are already too many crazy people with guns in the U.S. People who think the government is coming after their guns, or the government staged Sandy Hook to justify doing so, and that their guns are the only things that stand between them and tyranny. Nothing could be further from reality. Crazy, paranoid, frightened, dangerous people who shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a lethal weapon.

Just look at some of the posts here.

Tim-2799493 would your claim also apply to military personnel returning from combat? Many are not diagnosed with PTSD until it is too late. We have law enforcement personnel who are unstable as well. As stated and proved in the social sciences there is a fine line between law enforcement personnel and criminals. Society regards criminals as being mentally unstable so applying the same logic could be applied to some law enforcement personnel. This law was not well thought out but a knee jerk reaction for political purposes. Most killings with firearms are committed by gang bangers in the hood and must be controlled immediately.

Quite probably they should. Vietnam Veterans were very haed hit and many became unable to function in society. This is well documented. Why would other Veterans be any different.

tim -

" If someone feels they have been listed unfairly, they can appeal, and get a second opinion." So you are a proponent of "napoleanic justice" where you are deemed guilty until you can prove you're innocent. Nice.

"But better safe than sorry." Read B Franklin's comment on perceived security and freedom.

"It's time gun owners were held responsible for guaranteeing the safe use of their guns." There are already laws and recent indictment and trials show that enforcement is the issue.

"It's time we placed the safety of the public ahead of the individual's right to bear arms." So you advocate for better enforcement of the laws we have? Great. Lobby your representatives to start cracking down on gangs, which have a huge impact on the gun violence statistics in this country! (I would also add that it is time we placed the safety of the public ahead of the individual's right to freely express their opinions via a keyboard.)

I think many will join me in saying that we are glad you are not our ruler.

"There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters. "
Noah Webster
American Lexicographer

MPA I didnt know we had a ruler could you please explian?

But better safe than sorry." Read B Franklin's comment on perceived security and freedom.

Maybe you should, because it is one of the most frequently misquoted lines that gun enthusiasts use:

Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

The words 'essential' and 'temporary' usually being omitted. This is not about giving up essential liberty nor temporary freedom. Regulating guns does not surrender any essential freedom, and it is for the permanent freedom of the majority, not the gun owner.

It is quite clear that the laws as they exist are not adequate to meet the needs of the greater good, and their enforcement alone is insufficient.

It is an object of vast magnitude that systems of education should be adopted and pursued which may not only diffuse a knowledge of the sciences but may implant in the minds of the American youth the principles of virtue and of liberty and inspire them with just and liberal ideas of government and with an inviolable attachment to their own country.

Noah Webster

As Mankind becomes more liberal, they will be more apt to allow that all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community are equally entitled to the protections of civil government. I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations of justice and liberality.

George Washington

I think a person should be labeled a paranoid schizophrenic if they think the government is involved in false flag operations.

Joe no one is advocating someone truly diagnosed as mentally ill should have a firearm of any sort... The challenge is where do we draw the line? How many times in YOUR life have you uttered the words "I am going to kill you" or "I want to choke the living shyt out of that person"... Now if you say that to a mental health professional they would be required to report it... and you could be labeled mentally defective.... good luck on that next job application when they run a routine background check.

Joe, one of the problems with this concept is determining just who, and by what criteria, someone is declared mentally unfit to own a gun.

You use the phrase, "those who have been shown to a be a risk at some time in the past". I understand what you are saying, but, what is a "risk", and shown in what manner, and how far in the past is "some time"? To what body of the government would they make an "appeal"? Could that label be changed? Would one have to have a good lawyer, or a crooked judge, or both to take that onus off of one's name.

I understand your point, Joe. But all of these proposed solutions, from preventing some from buying weapons, to restricting the sale of some weapons are almost too meager in scope, and some measures have consequences beyond the immediate issue. Something needs to change. But, I am afraid that there are no easy solutions, no magic bullet.

It is too easy for so many of us to proclaim that we should do this, or that. But, most of these proposals are fraught with danger to our free society because they call for investing too much power into the hands of professionals such as teachers, mental health workers, and even school janitors, who some are calling to arm.

Be careful of what you wish for.

The few.the proud,the Marines.

@ smelbun

I hope in your delusional state that you walk in front of a train and save us from your idiocy. My son is a former Marine, now Army National Guard, and also a Mall Security Officer (no pistol) but he is far from unarmed. You better thank him you idiot

I think any person taking high doses of psychotropic medications should be excluded from owning a gun. Now what would be wrong with that. Many times the side affects are worsening depression or severe mood swings. I mean come on we have to get some common sense here. I had a grandmother who was a paranoid schizophrenic one minute we would be pulling her out of her oven with the gas turned on and the next minute she would go in to a blind rage. There is no way in the world I would want her able to get a gun. Also do any of you have any idea how hard it is to get someone committed? Even with the symptoms she had? Next to impossible.

The laws already exist to prevent someone who has a diagnosed mental defect from buying a gun. This is more along the lines of preventing someone from buying a gun who is feeling violent and wants to get help for their feelings.

Joe...your jumping to conclusions, flying off the handle etc. etc....I/we gun owners are not against finding out if someone is mentally ill...but what are parameters? who decides where the line is? If you had 10 psychologists in a room and asked them for one parameter that would define someone mentally ill, you'd get 10 different answers, and before it was done they'd be fighting amongst themselves....

Jay...Where did that come from? you sound angry, delusional. paranoid, your not fit to own a gun...

Semper fi Smelburn....RVN 69-72

The challenge is where do we draw the line? How many times in YOUR life have you uttered the words "I am going to kill you" or "I want to choke the living shyt out of that person"... Now if you say that to a mental health professional they would be required to report it... and you could be labeled mentally defective.... good luck on that next job application when they run a routine background check.

Then don't say things like that to your health worker. Ever hear that "Discretion is the better part of valor"? I'd say someone who walks around talking like that should raise a flag. Some of these posters on Newsvine and some of the attitudes expressed recently by leaders of the NRA should raise flags about their competency to be gun owners..

Do you think a paranoid schizophrenic person should be able to own a semi-automatic rifle?

What I think is irrelevant. So is what Congress and Cuomo and all the rest think. What matters is what the Supreme Court thinks and what it thinks is that one cannot be denied a right without due process of law. If you can convince a judge that this alleged "paranoid schizophrenic person" is "mentally defective", then they will be denied the right to own or possess any kind of firearm under current law. If you write a law that says that a person may be denied the right to own a firearm solely because some doctor said he was "a paranoid schizophrenic person", without any judicial involvement, then that law will almost certainly be struck down.

The current Federal law is carefully worded to be in compliance with previous court rulings that struck down laws that denied ownership of firearms on the basis of a medical diagnosis without judicial involvement.

If you google "Rosenhan Experiment" you will find out why "mental health professionals" are not to be trusted in such matters.

J. Clarke,

I too am in favor of keeping guns out of the hands of the mentally ill, and you have a good point. Some states (like Florida) will let almost anybody call themselves a mental health professional. There needs to be due process, and real mental health care involved...

Those rules already are in place and have been for quite some time!

Beat a dead horse now....

Two words. Virginia Tech. 32 dead.

2q3, we have laws on the books, but the laws are not being enforced. For example, there's a penalty for lying on a background check, but one enforeces it. Further, these loopholes, such as no requirement for background checks at gun shows, makes these laws useless.

"Joe, one of the problems with this concept is determining just who, and by what criteria, someone is declared mentally unfit to own a gun."

Hanne, here is one idea. How about we start with those people that receive disability checks from the government because they are too mentally ill to work. I believe the south calls them "crazy checks"?