Wow, you certainly don't write like it.
Because you seem to have trouble understanding him, I'll explain.
The anecdote is the singular story of an illegally armed man that actually didn't stop another man with a gun being used as 'proof' that more guns make us more safe.
The data of gun violence per capita vs percentage of gun ownership says the opposite.

And to your point about the 'gun free zones', they were created because mass murders had repeatedly already happened in these places, not before. EDIT: You seem to imply that they CAUSE mass murders...that's simply not true, they are BECAUSE of mass murders. If they enforced them, they would likely work, but you need a lot of metal detectors. I don't have the data of attacks in these places in a 'before the law vs after the law' form to verify 'gun free zones' work, but I would note any statistics about it MUST include the overall rate of increase in gun violence to have any meaning, as in 'a percentage of all shootings that happened in 'gun free zones' vs all those that happened everywhere', otherwise it's statistically completely meaningless.

A law concerning gun use that has an effect in Australia will not have the exact same effect in the U.S. because people in the U.S. will not react the exact same way to the law. For example, after Democrats began passing gun control legislation last year, gun manufacturers began refusing to sell guns to police departments in protest against the legislation. Democrats eventually backed down. This was a reaction to the law that was not observed in Australia; the effect of a law is defined by the reaction of those who are subject to it.

EDIT: You might also take into consideration why most of these mass shootings occur in places that are 'Gun Free' zones (e.g., schools, theaters, hospitals, shopping malls, etc.). By increasing the gun control laws, you are, in essence, increasing the number and amount of 'gun free' zones, but not reducing the number or amount of the mass shootings.

He needs a sign on his door that says 'Gang-free zone'.

*sigh, I live in Chico, and yes that is a law on the books. It came about in the 60's in protest to nuclear testing, and the city became one of the first "Nuclear-free-zones". They also wanted to keep the local state university out of nuclear research. The actual ordinance is

No person shall produce, test, maintain, or store within the city a nuclear weapon, component of a nuclear weapon, nuclear weapon delivery system, or component of a nuclear weapon delivery system under penalty of Chapter 9.60.030 of the Chico Municipal Code.

I do believe the punishment includes up to 6 months in jail, in addition to the $500 fine

I love how Jon points out that we are a nation of overreactors while at the same time he too is overreacting (along with the rest of the media). Guns are used in less than 10% of violent crime, yet that's all the media is concerned about. Jon and the media are both overreacting about so called assault rifles as well. Only 3% of crimes are committed with any type of rifle, and "assault rifles" are only a small sub-category of rifles. Why is the media only focusing on less than 10% of violent crimes (those that only involve guns), and why put so much of that focus on the least used type of gun to commit violence? Mass shootings barely make up 0.1% of all murders, yet it gets constant media coverage for weeks after it happens. If we do something to cut down on ALL violence, gun violence will also drop.

Jon also gets a lot of his "facts" wrong. The CDC has an average (1999-2010) gun homicide rate of 12,807 per year and an average accidental gun death of 758 per year, that doesn't add up to 30,000. There is no epidemic of gun violence either. Violence, including gun violence has been on a steady decline every year.

He was almost about to make a good point about gun control with the comparison to drunk driving. Drunk driving deaths were reduced through common sense laws, stricter sentences for drunk driving offenders and educating the public, not by banning alcohol or cars, or imposing ridiculous limits on cars like reducing the size of fuel tanks so drunk drivers would have to stop and refuel more often. When has banning anything ever solved a problem? We tried that with alcohol already, it didn't work. Drugs are illegal, and hows that war on drugs going? I don't use drugs, but I'm all for legalizing and regulating them. It's our generation's prohibition and it needs to end because all it's doing is causing more crime than it's preventing.

The argument that muskets were all that was available when the constitution was written is ridiculous. When the constitution was written they also didn't have radio, TV or the internet, so should we limit free speech and freedom of the press to only newspapers and soap boxes?

I'm willing to have a common sense discussion on how to reduce not just gun violence but all violence, but I'm waiting for the "anti-gun" side to show up with some common sense instead of fear and ignorance.

Guns are already highly regulated, but I'm not opposed to any new regulation as long as it will keep guns from criminals, include harsher punishment for criminal use of guns, and doesn't put any added burden on responsible gun owners. The current legislation being cooked up (what little has been revealed so far) is completely insane.

And by the way (since Jon brought up Mr. Belding), in 1997 at the Pearl, MS high school, it was the school's assistant principle with a gun that stopped the shooter. This was reported only in local papers. Only one national media network covered it, NBC, they mentioned it only twice, and then it was forgotten. Under the law the assistant principal was considered a criminal for having a gun in a gun free zone, yet if he didn't have his gun in his car that day to stop the shooter, the shooter would have been able to carry out his plan to drive to the junior high and kill more students while police were responding to the high school.

Hmmm. Ok fucj it. I'll go and find a video with Aussies praising the confiscation of their property and rendering the place crime-free...ish.

This is more for the country that's headed towards a colossal fist-fuck because of politicians (criminals), pharmaceutical companies (insulated from mention by all major media and, not surprisingly, self-pimping turds without a clue like TYT, one of THE most flaccid, non-journalistic cretinfests on the web) who help to "create" mental-health problems larger than they need to be by unleashing damaged goods full of legal drugs prescribed by complicit doctors. Step in, the magic wand of unraveling and deconstruction of the U.S. Constitution by appointed and approved, so-called scholars from Harvard(oh hey, the same place not a few of the cunts who run the country hailed-from) to "provide" a solution for a problem that they created and you have the slow-motion train-wreck of the coming police state in one of the best places to be on the planet.

Everything is propaganda sparky, it's your job to wade through what you perceive to be bullshit, kinna like I'm wading thorough yours without really wanting to argue.

Brave New World. Newsflash: Eliminate gun-free zones, arm yourselves against an agenda to let mental health monstrosities roam the place un-checked on hardcore psychotropics with guns STOLEN from their fucked-up mommy, and don't ask a country who will hide their guns from a government determined to take them ALL away to accept anything less than a sane solution to what is primarily a problem created by the people with the MOST money, power, and influence.

Tell me why the pharmaceutical companies shouldn't be having their asses dragged across the coals on television for their part in mass-murder? Answer: Because they have more power and money than a gun lobby.

Again, I give fuck-all about loaded facts and figures form any side of the aisle, they mean dick because the real issue lies in governments fist-fucking their citizens. Shame on the the Brits for letting their government take their shit away and shame on the Aussies for letting the Crown fuck them as well.

The Fed and the World Bank can only fuck the world because of the illusory stranglehold they have on the cattle-We believe their paper to be of value and that the system works. Hard to rally behind a rout of criminals in their palaces when food and fuel isn't available just like it's hard for a majority of citizens to mount a physical campaign on Washington for a protest.....logistics.

These measures to add incrementally, additional features, capacities, etc. to existing laws??? To avoid accusations of a totalitarian crackdown, you know the routine and those who would that the United States be gun-free zone have plenty of time and money and the fucking media in their pocket.

Get me started on the privilege of driving? I daily see morons who, if the required tests for a driving license sane, would be riding a fucking unicycle to work. This includes you dumb-asses who stay on your fucking cell the bulk of the time you spend in your vehicle. I live in a city with over 6 million people, 150 square miles in the county, and everyone owns a car. Fucking nightmare of imbeciles on the road DAILY, plenty of whom should not be allowed to carry a loaded, 2-3 ton killing machine.

What was it Al Pacino said in "Heat??"....You get killed walking your doggy!"

Real simple for me: Hire police and create soldiers out of unhinged fucks who have control and power issues and give THEM guns?? Until my saliva can be used to melt steel or some unifying event turns the world into an idyllic wonderland of brotherly love, Guns. Explosives. Pointy fucking sticks. To protect ourselves from defective assholes and should the need ever arise, we'll make our decision then.

The world becomes increasingly more chaotic and non-linear by the hour...embrace it. We live in one of the most incredible times in human history and the planet my children inherit will be unrecognizable very soon and all change is quite a good thing.

I think I could just paste my comment on half of the discusions around here. I think I will.

Here in Portland Oregon, A kid with a AR-15 walked into Clackamas Mall on Dec 11 to kill as many people as he could. He shot 3 people and his gun jammed, while he was fixing his jam, a citizen with a conealed carry permt drew his weopon and confronted the shooter, The shooter fled down a stairwell and shot himself. The mall was a gun free zone (the guy with the CCW was breaking the rules) and filled with thousands of holiday shoppers. The rampage was ended because one person could defend himself from the cowardly nutjob. You will not see the real story in the mainstream media.

Here in Portland Oregon, A kid with a AR-15 walked into Clackamas Mall on Dec 11 to kill as many people as he could. He shot 3 people and his gun jammed, while he was fixing his jam, a citizen with a conealed carry permt drew his weopon and confronted the shooter, The shooter fled down a stairwell and shot himself. The mall was a gun free zone (the guy with the CCW was breaking the rules) and filled with thousands of holiday shoppers. The rampage was ended because one person could defend himself from the cowardly nutjob. You will not see the real story in the mainstream media.

@quantumushroom

You are a joke. The facts are out there to find if you could bother to look somewhere other than Fox News. The evidence is overwhelmingly one-sided, and it does not fall the way you propose.

I don't need to defend something that has been proven ad nauseum against the fact-free zone that lives between your ears. Even if I did, you would find some way to refute the incontrovertibly proven, or you'd just come up with a new set of lies.

[Edit: Nvrmnd. This is a cynicism-free zone! Enjoy your day!]>> ^legacy0100:

Anyone else feel that this was soooooooo stereotypically Mexican?? I sense a strong DIY-build-EVERYTHING-out-of-ANYTHING-attitude-to-stretch-the-budget-mentality from his parent. I know that few of my Hispanic friends often like to make their own wallets out of folded duct tape and sewing their own clothes to make it look unique.
What I'm saying is that if this kid was born in the suburbs of Palo Alto going to an Apple Inc. funded school, he would've had better equipment and resources to play with and probably was in line to be the next Bill Gates.

Your argument seems confused to me sir. Access to guns = Killings at school?
You are right though, same 'pattern' can be observed here. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/sep/23/finland.schoolsworldwide .
IMO only certain trained professionals (+psych eval) absolutely require, and therefore, should have access to non-sporting guns, thats it. If you want to have access to guns designed to kill people (alot, quickly, efficiently), and defend your fellow countryman, become a trained professional. >> ^Buck:

"In 2007, a deranged student killed 32 people at Virginia Tech -- 30 of them in a very short period of time in one building. He didn't need high-capacity magazines because he had two guns and reloaded.
There was no one to stop him.
School shootings that have been halted were almost always stopped by the happenstance of an armed citizen on school property.
In 2002, an immigrant in Virginia started shooting his classmates at the Appalachian Law School in Grundy. Two of his classmates retrieved guns from their cars, forcing the killer to drop his weapon and allowing a third classmate to tackle him.
Thrre dead.
In Santee, Calif., in 2001, when a student began shooting his classmates, the school activated its "safe school plan" -- as the principal later told CNN -- by sending a "trained campus supervisor" to stop the killer.
Possibly not realizing that he was in a gun-free zone, the killer responded by shooting the trained campus supervisor three times. Fortunately, an armed off-duty San Diego policeman happened to be bringing his daughter to school that day. With a gun, he stopped the killer and held him at bay until more police could arrive.
Two dead.
In 1997, a student at Pearl High School in Pearl, Miss., had already shot several people at his high school and was headed for the junior high school when assistant principal Joel Myrick retrieved a .45 pistol from his car and pointed it at the gunman's head, ending the slaughter.
Two dead.
In 1998, a student attending a junior high school dance at a restaurant in Edinboro, Pa., started shooting, whereupon the restaurant owner pulled out his shotgun, chased the gunman from the restaurant and captured him for the police.
One dead.
See the pattern?"
---------------------
"Letter writer Barry Ruhl is concerned about a new gun law being proposed in Florida. The changes would bring Florida's laws in line with Utah's. Both require a permit to carry a concealed handgun, but in Utah open-carry is also allowed. It would also allow non-felons to carry in all public places including schools. Ruhl fears that this will degrade public safety.
I would like to point out that Utah's murder rate is just 1.3 per 100,000 and it has never had a school shooting. When Utah enacted its handgun carry laws in 1995, its murder rate was 3.9, three times higher than it is today. Canada's murder rate is 1.8.
In each and every state that has passed a handgun carry law, all rates of crime have dropped immediately and significantly."

"In 2007, a deranged student killed 32 people at Virginia Tech -- 30 of them in a very short period of time in one building. He didn't need high-capacity magazines because he had two guns and reloaded.
There was no one to stop him.
School shootings that have been halted were almost always stopped by the happenstance of an armed citizen on school property.
In 2002, an immigrant in Virginia started shooting his classmates at the Appalachian Law School in Grundy. Two of his classmates retrieved guns from their cars, forcing the killer to drop his weapon and allowing a third classmate to tackle him.
Thrre dead.
In Santee, Calif., in 2001, when a student began shooting his classmates, the school activated its "safe school plan" -- as the principal later told CNN -- by sending a "trained campus supervisor" to stop the killer.
Possibly not realizing that he was in a gun-free zone, the killer responded by shooting the trained campus supervisor three times. Fortunately, an armed off-duty San Diego policeman happened to be bringing his daughter to school that day. With a gun, he stopped the killer and held him at bay until more police could arrive.
Two dead.
In 1997, a student at Pearl High School in Pearl, Miss., had already shot several people at his high school and was headed for the junior high school when assistant principal Joel Myrick retrieved a .45 pistol from his car and pointed it at the gunman's head, ending the slaughter.
Two dead.
In 1998, a student attending a junior high school dance at a restaurant in Edinboro, Pa., started shooting, whereupon the restaurant owner pulled out his shotgun, chased the gunman from the restaurant and captured him for the police.
One dead.

See the pattern?"

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

"Letter writer Barry Ruhl is concerned about a new gun law being proposed in Florida. The changes would bring Florida's laws in line with Utah's. Both require a permit to carry a concealed handgun, but in Utah open-carry is also allowed. It would also allow non-felons to carry in all public places including schools. Ruhl fears that this will degrade public safety.

I would like to point out that Utah's murder rate is just 1.3 per 100,000 and it has never had a school shooting. When Utah enacted its handgun carry laws in 1995, its murder rate was 3.9, three times higher than it is today. Canada's murder rate is 1.8.

In each and every state that has passed a handgun carry law, all rates of crime have dropped immediately and significantly."

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

>> ^Yogi:
The middle east should be a completely nuclear weapons free zone. That means Israel doesn't get them either. That is what the majority of Americans want that is what the overwhelming majority of the world wants, that isn't what the government of the United States is ever going to allow. Democracy....fuck it.

Because the idea of the UN was the use the might of first world nations to subvert the sovereignty of entire regions. Like the Democracy in the playground of my youth.


Not sure what you're saying there. Is that sarcasm or do you think nuclear weapons are a good idea?

>> ^Yogi:

The middle east should be a completely nuclear weapons free zone. That means Israel doesn't get them either. That is what the majority of Americans want that is what the overwhelming majority of the world wants, that isn't what the government of the United States is ever going to allow. Democracy....fuck it.


Because the idea of the UN was the use the might of first world nations to subvert the sovereignty of entire regions. Like the Democracy in the playground of my youth.