I had police training about how to react to an "active shooter." I wish I kept my materials. I recall a high percentage of young adults who commit these crimes are actively on mental illness medication, some of which have warnings of homicidal/ suicidal idiations. Food for thought.

And I learned the first school shooting was in the 1800s. And nutballs that want soft victims go to schools and some have used knives. So do we ban those too? Or fertilizer and deisiel fuel?

I dont think so. Growing up there were series on TV about war (Combat) with lots of people getting shot and blown up every week. Remember all the war movies about WW II and Korea.

Lots of cowboy and indians shows and movies with people getting killed in the hundreds.

We used to play a game with knives called land where we took a pocket knife and threw it into the ground near our feet. Dumb of course but we all did it.

How the world has changed.

BS!

Other rates?
 

Suicide rate is sky high, culture driven

Whose god do you want in schools? Yours. I don't want my kid indoctrinated. Your god is banned from schools by the Constitution.

Actually, it is. "ArmaLite first developed the AR-15 in the late 1950s as a military rifle, but had limited success in selling it. In 1959 the company sold the design to Colt.

In 1963, the U.S. military selected Colt to manufacture the automatic rifle that soon became standard issue for U.S. troops in the Vietnam War. It was known as the M-16.

Armed with that success, Colt ramped up production of a semiautomatic version of the M-16 that it sold to law enforcement and the public, marketed as the AR-15."

Yep, 350 million plus hard core crazy killers and murderers. Now if want to come up with reasonable solutions? No semiautomatic hand guns, no semiautomatic rifles with magazines over 5 rounds or no semiautomatic rifles. No extended magazines. No guns will never happen, but limitations can work. No society is actually free so the free country argument out the window.

Ted Kennedy's Oldsmobile has killed more people than all my guns combined.

Hype, my vote would be the AK47 originally chambered for 7.62X39, since then of course it has been manufactured from 223, on up

Police /military ok , everybody else muzzleloaders

Too many guns and too many illegal untraceable guns entering country. No guns will NEVER happen even if you outlaw them, yes it will work with law bidding citizens, but what about the other 30% or higher? Limited gun laws where can go after manufacture an dealers might work legally, but illegal trade it won’t. laws in this country are not all enforced depending on who’s in charge at moment.

Useless analogy… go live in Japan. Tell how you feel safer there. The real problem is we (USA) abandoned mental health in the 70’s. We abandoned God, family and morality starting in the 80’s and 90’s as a society. USA will reap what it sows if we do not make some serious changes to how we raise our children and how we ignore people with mental illness.

Start at the top
 

Our congressmen consume millions of dollars of taxpayer money each year and most of them are not willing to do anything about this huge issue. If our lawmakers are not doing their job, they need to be removed in the next election.

Every resident of this country has the ability to enforce change if they are willing to vote based on actual results instead of hot air and propaganda.

This is not meant to be political as it applies to everyone. Why do you allow these politicians to get re-elected when they are not solving problems like this?

That is a start! Taking away our guns is not the answer. Society, cultural ,
mental illness etc. he was on a mission! If no gun he would have found another
weapon.

Actually I don’t want bunch of idiots with bags of black powder. Sooner or later they figure out they can make bombs 💣.

I think it’s more like any American can buy weapons that can fire 400 rounds per minute. Even the inventors of these weapons agree it is a weapon designed for Military use in combat .

So is teaching off the state approved requirements. Teachers are paid to teach approved state material, not what they think should be taught. I don’t want my kids indoctrinated by teachers agenda.

An AR-15 does shoot a type of 22cal ammo. It just has more powder charge. It is NOT an automatic weapon, and is NOT a combat weapon. Although, I suppose ANY rifle could be used in combat. But that does not make "any" rifle an assault weapon. Most folks speak of "assault" weapons as automatic rifles. An automatic rifle fires multiple rounds when the trigger is pulled. An M-14 rifle fires a 7.62mm round or a 308cal and has the ability to fire automatic when a selector switch is installed. That was the combat rifle used in years past in our military. M-16 rifles were then utilized in jungle conditions because of the short size and the ability to carry a lot more ammo on the person, with less weight. Also the M-16, being shorter was less likely to be as bulky maneuvering in the jungle. An AR-15 is basically a semiautomatic version of the military M-16. The M-16 has the ability to fire automatically, where the M-15 can not. A Ruger Mini-14 uses the same ammo as the AR-15 and the M-16. A Remington 700 that fires 308 ammo basically fires the same ammo as the M-14. You can purchase any number of pistols that fire 9mm ammo that are not considered "assault" weapons, but an Uzi fires automatically and is considered an assault weapon by many. I am not a weapons expert, but have used a multitude of different weapons in my lifetime, some in the military, some in law enforcement and some in recreation. Muskets were considered military weapons when the Constitution was created. Are they "assault" weapons? It's all a matter of perspective. The point is that anything can be used as a weapon to destroy or a tool to protect or supply food for the table. Time to be realistic and concentrate on the cause of violence, not the means of violence.

Nope

There will always be killings as long as human species exist. The questions is how many and haw fast can one kill.

With baseball bat, knife, punching, etc..
vs. Automatic rifle, machine gun, handgun, etc..

Yes even a hunting bow can kill from a distance but not at the rate of AR-15.

If we have to have guns for hunting and ranching and other purposes, maybe it's time for license and registrations also insurance. Powerful Insurance companies might be able to do something our politicians and all of can not do.

Sadness.

Somehow we must bring into balance our rights under the Second (keep and bear arms) and Fourth (be secure in our persons, houses, papers, and effects) Amendments.

:1rotfl::clap2::mademyday:

A Ruger 10/22 is a semiauto 22cal rifle that allows one to insert magazines that will hold anywhere from 10 to 50 rounds of ammo or more. Is that an assault weapon? Or, is it not used by the military so it is not considered dangerous? M-16's and AR-15's are basically 22cal rifles (223). Pellet rifles can be purchased that are fully automatic and legal. You can purchase a 22cal fully automatic pellet rifle or pistol without a background check. Do you wish to be in front of one that is being fired at you?
Like I said, people are the problem.

The 2nd protects you against violations of the 4th.

Why not do both?

am not that sure this thread walks that line. this issue involves all parties & all citizens, maybe that's why they left it open. there's some very good points here to consider--on all sides

It protected the children?

Totally Agree
 

Plus do not advertise all this on the news , just give someone else the idea how to do it !

& that was one of the good points i was referring to, very effective

You seem to be focused on the wording, "assault weapon" while ignoring the AR15 is the most popular gun sold in America. It is also designed to "appear" like it's military counter part while meeting government regulations. And of course not least, it is the weapon of choice in most mass shootings since it's release.

So, call it what ever you like...

And, I expect if AR15s were completely 100% banned, then the people wanting to kill a lot of people quickly would simply move to another weapon, like some of those you have pointed out would be much better to use.

So, I personally have no desire to BAN all guns. I think the horse have left that barn. With close to 400 million in circulation there is no practical way to ban them. However, that doesn't mean we should do nothing. Cool down periods, ager restrictions, and other means could be used/tried. And, personally I also would like to see a Federal Law that required some minimum level of control. And if a state is found to not be enforcing that minimum level the state would be held responsible/liable for any casualties that resulted.

Actually, that would be Honduras, with a violent crime rate per 100,000 of 52.019. Honduras also leads the world in murder rate, by the way.

The UK is something like 157th overall, even lower in murder rate.

Interesting a quick search showed numbers AS HIGH AS 11% of shooters in schools exhibit serious mental health issues. Up to 20% of mass murderers.

I don't understand your point about knives, fertilizer, etc. Are you suggesting that ;since anything CAN be used as a weapon we should just do nothing? Since you are saying what doesn't work, but not making any suggestion one what to do to stop this uniquely American past time. We are the only country in the world that kills it's children for going to school.

Here is a study by MIH on mental health and mass shootings.

Mental Illness, Mass Shootings, and the Politics of American Firearms - PMC

The much available (and discussed/mis-used) model "AR-15" is not an automatic weapon!!!

It is a rifle on an AR-15 configuration.

It is one shot with one trigger pull.....shoots as fast as fast as you can repeat pulling the trigger......like most all other firearms!

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law...-turning-point

This does seem to suggest that more gun manufacturers will be sued for violence done by people using their weapons especially if the company marketed the firearm in a certain way.

First, this is factually wrong. It is not even in the top 10, maybe around 150th?

And second, this thread is about school shootings and school children being murdered, and GB. has not had ONE school shooting since 1996, and within months of that shooting they banned most guns and strangely - no more school shooting since then. I am NOT claiming causality, but there does seem to be correlation.

Here one way of researching that?

Most Dangerous Countries in the World 2022

If the law cannot protect our rights under the Fourth Amendment, then the Second Amendment will.

IMO, the very loop that this thread has taken is why not enough progress has been made to help reduce these tragic events. Apples are not truly being compared to apples when we compare our past history with our current society, nor when we compare US against other countries. EVERYTHING is not equal and making basic comparisons ignores these differences. For example, how does the use of anti-depressants factor in? Here is a study from 2021 on "America's Epidemic Of Antidepressants" (link). Were antidepressants as prevalent back then as they are now? What are the rates of anti-depressant use in other countries? What are the comparative suicide rates (US today versus the 1950's and US vs other countries)? When we were kids, we were exposed to violence as are kids of today, but WHAT IS DIFFERENT? One easy answer is that when we were kids, we socialized more (read: played) with other children whereas today a segment of the population playing violent video games are doing so online and by themselves.

Instead, how about taking the time understand how human life has become so devalued in our society? Is that too big of a challenge? Well then why don't we try to understand why CURRENT laws are not working and fix what is broken (for whatever reason) before we implement new laws? As an example from an earlier post in this thread: "But, not all somethings are useful. That is obvious, since there are lots of "somethings" being done, useless gun Carol laws that are not enforced and have too many loop holes for example." I asked: "I am curious as to which gun control laws are useless and not enforced and what the many loopholes are that make them useless." I still have not seen a response to this question, although the person who made the former statement has posted multiple times since then.

So if we are to solely focus on new "common sense" gun laws, please explain specifically what these laws would be and correlate how these new laws would have prevented these mass shootings. Given that at least twice in this thread, a statistic of "200 mass shootings have occurred this year" has been cited, I would ask that these proposed laws also be correlated to handgun usage and not just the use of a rifle. Note that I am not disputing the number since it would appear to include gangland style handgun shootings in major urban areas, but it would be helpful if the poster included a link to support the reported number and to provide context. I would also not be at all surprised if the data also shows that HANDGUNS are used more frequently than rifles in mass shooting events.

Oh, and I am looking as well for a definition of what an "assault rifle" actually is. I am not talking about the look or color of a rifle, I am talking about what function in the rifle makes it an "assault rifle". Hint: AR does NOT stand for assault rifle despite what the talking heads say, it stands for ArmaLite rifle after the company that originated the design in the 1950's.

Why $73 million Sandy Hook settlement is unlikely to unleash a flood of lawsuits against gun-makers

This also might be of interest.

I did not say it's automatic. I was in the army, I know the difference with M-16.
Even with single fire trigger, it is a whole lot faster killer than a bow. That's my point.

Sadness