[tuccillo]

I believe mass murders represent about 1% of gun deaths. While this is tragic, nearly two-thirds of the gun deaths are from suicide. We rarely hear anything about those deaths in the media. However, the one thing they both have in common is mental health.

From a media point of view, mass murders make better news and then politicians respond to the media coverage. That is one of the reasons we are where we are. By the way, I believe about 75% of the guns used in mass murders are pistols and less than 10% are semi-automatic rifles. Anyone wonder why the media focuses on semi-automatic rifles in their coverage? Just sayin ...

Originally Posted by Jima64

The last few mass murderers legally bought weapons, had no criminal or social record that would prevent them. Proposed new legislation would not have kept yhem from doing so. Obama and Fienstein need to realize this. I was in San Francisco when Diane rose to power with the shooting of the mayor and supervisor. She is so narrow minded and focused on something that won't work.

[Taltarzac725]

Originally Posted by dillywho

Banning guns is not the answer. Creating more laws is not the answer. There are plenty of laws on the books now, most of which are enforced. Those only work for the responsible gun owners. Key word: Responsible.

I do not believe that these killings are totally a mental health issue. Like so many other crimes (purse snatchings, etc.), many are crimes of opportunity. Anyone who takes another's life, other than in self defense, has a mental problem whether diagnosed or not.

We rave about the illegals, the drug trafficking, prostitution, drunk driving, and the list goes on. There are laws there that are not obeyed, either. How did prohibition work out back in the 20's? It simply lead to the criminal element getting stronger and more crime against law-abiding citizens, law enforcement, and the other criminals in the same business of illegal booze. Ban guns and the criminal element will flourish. They would love nothing better.

People who want to kill will find a way. Gang members have no shortage of guns. How many of those were obtained legally? How many illegal knives (yes, there are laws governing knives) do they have? A kid back home was intentionally killed when another one used his dad's Cadillac to drive into some others and he didn't get away in time, but was then targeted even after he was down and hit again. The killer was from an affluent family and he and his buddies didn't agree with the "punk" look. Other examples from McVeigh on abound.

Ban the guns, crime will increase by whatever means a person choses. Take the guns and watch the bombings start cropping up for those intent on mass killing. They will find a way. Count on it.

Guns, knives, bombs, or whatever don't kill. People do.

I do think the problem of gun violence can only be solved by people getting more involved in their communities. Mothers stood up to the gangs in Chicago and did make some headway. Neighbors did this by banding together. Mothers Help Curb Gun Violence in Troubled Chicago Neighborhood

[AJ32162]

Originally Posted by Taltarzac725

I do think the problem of gun violence can only be solved by people getting more involved in their communities. Mothers stood up to the gangs in Chicago and did make some headway. Neighbors did this by banding together. Mothers Help Curb Gun Violence in Troubled Chicago Neighborhood

How about we start with, "Parents need to be more involved with their children."

[Taltarzac725]

Originally Posted by AJ32162

How about we start with, "Parents need to be more involved with their children."

That was certainly one of the problems with the Oregon shooting as well as the CT one. Maybe with the Oregon one though the mother seemed to encourage the killer's obsession with guns of all kinds. Mother of Oregon College Shooter Wrote About Guns, Autism - NBC News

[rosygail]

Guns should be at least as regulated as autos.
Registered, licensed with every two year renewal , Liability insurance,
plus if you have any previous crimes (not just felonies) NO GUN for you!
The penalties for violation of the above should be draconian!
Jail time manditory!
Commit a crime with a gun and it's life in prison!
This will stop the average criminal cold.

[MikeV]

If the media stopped reporting the names, ages and addresses of these disturbed shooters maybe there would be less of it. Many idolize those that committed these mass shootings before them and they want the world to know their names also.

[MDLNB]

It all comes down to background checks before you are allowed to have children. Why not start at the beginning? Yes, I am being facetious. You are not going to resolve this problem with background checks and mental screening. It won't work and both are expensive, if they are effective.

The only/ONLY answer besides giving your child the best raising you can, is to allow more folks to carry and less gun free zones. If you get rid of gun free zones, there is less likely going to be a mass killing in those areas that were safe for the wacko. More folks carrying will mean that if someone is crazy enough to start firing in a crowd, someone will take him down before he kills more than one or two in the crowd. Much better than ten or twenty. That takes care of the wackos.
To hinder drive by shootings and robberies, enforce strict penalties. Anyone perpetrating a crime using a gun will automatically get life in prison or death if anyone was killed. Why so strict? Because if a person is using a gun in a crime, he is prepared to use it and if he is shot, it's his own fault. No one else's fault. This would work as a deterrent.
That takes care of the wackos and the career criminal.
You can't do ANYTHING about the suicides because you will never know if that person is depressed in time. And about 51% or more of the gun related deaths are suicides. They aren't bothering anyone so leave them alone. Good news women, men are four or five times more likely to commit suicide. Good news young people, most suicides are of ages 45 to 65 years old. There's hope for Social Security longevity after all.

Solution: More guns and less gun free zones.

So, other than polishing up and enforcing our existing gun related laws, there's nothing legislatively that can be done to lower the statistics.

[TNLAKEPANDA]

Originally Posted by rosygail

Guns should be at least as regulated as autos.
Registered, licensed with every two year renewal , Liability insurance,
plus if you have any previous crimes (not just felonies) NO GUN for you!
The penalties for violation of the above should be draconian!
Jail time manditory!
Commit a crime with a gun and it's life in prison!
This will stop the average criminal cold.

These are insane thoughts. Bet you never owned a gun.

Liability Insurance? Some do have this insurance to cover attorney fees should they be involved is a self defense shooting but that is not going to do anything. Mass murder's probably don't even have auto insurance.

Register & License your gun. May be but again Criminals are not going to do that and it will not stop mass murders.

If you committed ANY previous crimes no gun? Like a parking ticket or speeding ticket? Really.

Commit a crime with a gun jail time mandatory. That make sense. Life in prison? We could not afford to build that many prisons. We are letting felons by the thousands out now. Better we just shoot them with their gun.

No matter what you can not legislate away things like murder or mass murder.
Again criminals and crazy people do not follow laws. Only the good honest people do and they are not going to shoot you!

[billethkid]

I think we are in snow up to the axle with the pedal to the floor....going no place!

[outlaw]

Originally Posted by rosygail

Guns should be at least as regulated as autos.
Registered, licensed with every two year renewal , Liability insurance,
plus if you have any previous crimes (not just felonies) NO GUN for you!
The penalties for violation of the above should be draconian!
Jail time manditory!
Commit a crime with a gun and it's life in prison!
This will stop the average criminal cold.

This is why the authors of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights wrote the 2nd amendment. We now have generations of people with little knowledge or understanding, and therefore, little respect for the importance of individual rights, among those rights, the God given right to self protection. We have people, who should know better, actually equate the right to self protection with driving a car, or going to Disney World, and actually ignoring the 2nd A wording of "shall not be infringed". We live in a society that willingly gives up personal freedoms such as right to privacy, to bear arms, free speech, freedom of religion, for what? Safety, or at least a "feeling" of safety. This is the new America, where everyone gets a trophy, and the masses want the government to provide cradle to grave care. But guess what? These people that want to take everyone's guns will be begging for someone to rescue them when they are about to become a victim of some predator. When seconds count, the police are only minutes away.

[tuccillo]

You really can't enforce registration/licensing and insurance. Guns are not like cars, which you can easily see someone driving on the roads. Are you going to start searching people's homes for unregistered guns? Guns are a right, driving is a privilege. What is ironic is talking about this stuff increases gun sales. Obama is a great gun salesman.

Originally Posted by rosygail

Guns should be at least as regulated as autos.
Registered, licensed with every two year renewal , Liability insurance,
plus if you have any previous crimes (not just felonies) NO GUN for you!
The penalties for violation of the above should be draconian!
Jail time manditory!
Commit a crime with a gun and it's life in prison!
This will stop the average criminal cold.

[Dr Winston O Boogie jr]

Is it simply perception that we have so many gun deaths in the US?

A 2011 UN report said that we have 5 gun killings per 100,000 citizens. that same report shows that Switzerland, which is considered to have one of the lowest gun deaths, has .5 per 100,000. I realize that that is ten times greater, but when an amount is such a small sampling of the whole, the difference is insignificant. It should also be mentioned that about 70% of all gun deaths in the US were suicides and a small percentage were accidents or justified killings such as self defense. So it appears that we have about 1.5 deaths per 100,000 citizens by aggression by gun.

Look at it this way. If you were buying a house for $100,000 and I offered you a discount of $.50 and someone else offered you a discount of $5.00 for a similar house, would a discount of ten times have any any bearing on your decision?

The US is actually about in the middle of a chart listing various country's gun deaths per 100,000. Honduras is near the top with about 64 yet are 87th in guns owned per capita. Switzerland is fourth in gun's owned per capita yet is near the bottom of the list of gun deaths per capita.

I think that the fact that we had these crazy mass shootings gives the perception that we've got millions of people running around shooting each other. We have the highest number of guns owned per capita of any country in the world, yet we are in the middle of the number of guns deaths per capita.

There doesn't seem to be a correlation in the number of guns owned per capita and the number of gun related deaths per capita.

[TNLAKEPANDA]

Want to create a gun-free America in 5 easy steps?

Here's all there is to it:

Step 1: Elect. For a gun-free America, the first thing you'll need is two-thirds of Congress. So elect a minimum of 67 Senators and 290 Representatives who are on your side.

Step 2: Propose. Then, have them vote to propose an amendment to the Constitution which repeals Second Amendment gun rights for all Americans.

Step 3: Ratify. Then convince the legislators of 38 states to ratify that change.

At this point, the Second Amendment is history, but you've done nothing to decrease gun violence. All you've done is remove the barrier for Congress to act.

Step 4: Legislate. You need to enact "common sense" reform.

You can try to do what Australia did and...ban all guns? That's not at all what they did, but whatever, **** it. Go big or go home, right?

It will have to be passed by Congress and signed by the president.

Great! The law is passed and guns are now illegal. The only thing left to do is...

Step 5: Enforce. Guns won't just disappear because you passed a law. You need to confiscate some 350 million guns scattered among 330 Million Americans.

Sure, you can try a buy-back program like Australia, but like Australia that will still leave behind anywhere from 60 percent to 80 percent of privately owned firearms.

The rest you have to take.

You'll need the police, the FBI, the ATF or the National Guard—all known for their nuanced approach to potentially dangerous situations—to go door-to-door, through 3.8 million square miles of this country and take guns, by force, from thousands, if not, millions of well-armed individuals. Many of whom would rather start a civil war than acquiesce.

So inevitably gun violence, which is currently at a historic low, will skyrocket!

But that is how you get a gun-free America in five easy steps.

Of course we would have Historic Violence and Gun Deaths in this country if that is ever attempted. Vote wisely my friend.

[Carl in Tampa]

It is interesting to see so many varying opinions regarding firearms ownership. To some extent this probably reflects that TV people come from so many varied areas of the country.

THE FACT IS that if I waved a magic wand at 8AM tomorrow and every firearm in the country disappeared except for those held by police and the military, by 8AM the next day there would be thousands of guns in the hands of criminals. They would get them by assaulting police and taking their guns; by burglarizing the homes of police and taking their guns; or by burglarizing military armories and taking their guns.

There would also become a major industry of smuggling guns into the country. Drug runners would become gun runners.

CRIMINALS WILL HAVE GUNS.

There is only a partial solution to the problem of mass shootings at schools. That solution is DO AWAY WITH "GUN FREE ZONES." It is incredibly stupid to let an unbalanced potential mass killer know in advance where he is least likely to encounter armed resistance.

THE BEST WAY TO STOP A BAD GUY WITH A GUN IS WITH A GOOD GUY WITH A GUN.

(Trust me. I have around 40 years in law enforcement, and have been in multiple gun fights.......always won.)

[TNLAKEPANDA]

Originally Posted by Carl in Tampa

It is interesting to see so many varying opinions regarding firearms ownership. To some extent this probably reflects that TV people come from so many varied areas of the country.

THE FACT IS that if I waved a magic wand at 8AM tomorrow and every firearm in the country disappeared except for those held by police and the military, by 8AM the next day there would be thousands of guns in the hands of criminals. They would get them by assaulting police and taking their guns; by burglarizing the homes of police and taking their guns; or by burglarizing military armories and taking their guns.

There would also become a major industry of smuggling guns into the country. Drug runners would become gun runners.

CRIMINALS WILL HAVE GUNS.

There is only a partial solution to the problem of mass shootings at schools. That solution is DO AWAY WITH "GUN FREE ZONES." It is incredibly stupid to let an unbalanced potential mass killer know in advance where he is least likely to encounter armed resistance.

THE BEST WAY TO STOP A BAD GUY WITH A GUN IS WITH A GOOD GUY WITH A GUN.

(Trust me. I have around 40 years in law enforcement, and have been in multiple gun fights.......always won.)

Well said Carl. I solute you!