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I'll add the caveat that if this "change everything" attitude means he's now going to be calling for censoring movies, TV, and videogames, he's still part of the problem, but it's good to hear him wake up and realize it's time to try doing something different.

Forensic Psychologists say -- stop showing the faces of the mass murderers. Take away the incentive to self aggrandize.

How do you do that, in this internet world of instantaneous communication? That ain't happening via legislation. And no news outlet, all which are profit driven, will cut themselves off from that data.

It may be this is here to stay. But we can at least try to regulate the guns.

A society of a high moral standard will be the best first line of defense of such evil.

Regulating guns is not the answer.
If only a teacher had a conceal and carry permit or some appointed official to have a gun on site.

We ain't ever going to have a society of "high moral standard" as long as we let evil people like yourself bully us into inaction. It's very, very easy for us to save a lot of lives by implementing sensible gun regulation.

You can be a moral person too, all you have to do is turn off your Fox News and Rush Limbaugh, and return to the human race.

There are no solutions, only trade-offs.

For some reason, liberals are incapable of understanding good people with guns are the best deterrent of bad people with guns.

And conservatives are incapable of recognizing that that's a delusional fantasy completely unmoored from the reality we actually inhabit.

Lax gun regulation just leads to more dead people, not to some utopia where only people who deserve death wind up shot.

When you can define "morality" without it just being a code word for enforcing religion on the populace, then you can talk.

till then, shut the fuck up, morality has scant little to do with this. even the most "moral" person in the world can still be subject to mental breakdowns and the loss of reason.

Every single one of us has the capability of cracking given the right stress. the question is: can that "breakdown" be detected or caught early enough to do something about it, if not, then the question is, does that person have access to firearms?

And besides, you sure conservatives want to arm teachers? Conservatives haven't been too friendly to teachers lately.

Guess what asshole, having a firearm doesn't magically confer the ability to use it wisely. give me the overly-strict gun laws of the UK or Japan over a bunch of armed drunk redneck idiots with delusions of grandeur ANY DAY.

Unless you're going to pay for SWAT training for every teacher, shut the hell up, moron.

We tried the lawlessness of the old west. There's a reason why it's in the past.

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Joe doesn't "get it". Like so many of his ilk he is only able to empathise when it is sufficiently close to home. That he has children of that age is what made him "get it". What he gets is that this could have affected him. This isn't morality. It's fear via self-interest.
Unless he is a moral particularist he has no principles with which to appeal, just reflexive emotions. What will it take for him to "get" that civilian causalities, let alone American troops losses, in the "war on terror" far far outweigh the initial act of terror? What principles guide him that do not rest on the end of his nose? None.

@Kofi, I posted on his Facebook page under this vid. Congratulated him for having the courage to change his mind. And then encouraged him to look at WHY he changed his mind, why he suddenly had empathy, and to maybe try a little harder to have empathy on other policy issues when it isn't just about him.

It took a lot for him to make this shift. Let's give him props for it. And remind him to take this lesson into other areas of public policy.

Nothing but creating gun scarcity will work, which is what the rest of the developed world does, and with 89 guns/100 people that will not happen in this lifetime. I suggest getting used to it already or emigrating.

http://azizonomics.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/total-gun-ownership.jpg

http://www.economist.com/blogs/lexington/2012/12/gun-control

"One study asserts that Americans are more likely to be shot to death than people in the world’s other 35 wealthier nations. While this is literally true, it is irrelevant—except, perhaps to people terrified not of death per se but just death by gunshot. A fact that should be of greater concern but which the study fails to mention—is that per capita murder overall is only half as frequent in the United States as in several other nations where gun murder is rarer, but murder by strangling, stabbing, or beating is much more frequent. Of course, it may be speculated that murder rates around the world would be higher if guns were more available. But there is simply no evidence to support this."

Study by Harvard:
http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol30_No2_KatesMauseronline.pdf

If you actually read the study, the "several other nations" are in East Europe and the Balkans.

How about just looking at the data instead of citing studies and throwing Harvard around?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate#By_country

Sort descending rate by country. See any countries above the US's rate you'd like to live in?

So you're saying that banning all firearms in the USA will decrease the murder rate?
You'll still have a huge black market firearms (which are easy to make from tools from Harbor Freight in your Garage), see Assault Shovel:
http://www.northeastshooters.com/vbulletin/threads/179192-DIY-Shovel-AK-photo-tsunami-warning

Also 2 of the biggest homicides in the USA were done with no guns at all, see Timothy McVay and Andrew Kehoe.

I'm not a gun advocate at all, but just banning firearms won't "fix" the problem of rampage killers or lower the homicide rate.

I'm not taking sides here but please (he asks having been just as divisive when rattled) " as long as we let evil people like yourself bully"...etc. etc. Come on??! It's a valid point and labels and judgements are unnecessary. Just listen to the pontificous blowhard tugging at your heartstrings with a clear intent of helping helpless people make helpless decisions. I hate diatribes like this ...THINK OF THE CHILDREN, shit...Fuck you! Think of people like you)whoever this TV head is, not you netrunner), editorializing putz with agenda favoring police state, making YET another plea to collective insanity.

Who got the developmentally fractured shooter the gun?
Who raised the retard?
Who takes personal responsibility for their own actions? Who lets those who would create more imbeciles suggest baby-out-with-bathwater moves to adjust laws instead of minds?

These are questions that need to be asked, among others.
For instance, "Who let this cocksucker on television?!"

@ redsky-Took your advice and checked the descending list, and Martinique and Turkmenistan are on either side of the U.S.....I have thought of St. Lucia or Martinique to check out to if ever deciding to trade passports....

The NRA talking points are an excellent vehicle for the study of logical fallacy in political propaganda. Let me know if I left any out.

1. Strawman - Banning ALL guns is not the answer.

2. False Dichotomy - Instead of talking about gun regulation, let's talk about mental health.

3. Appeal to Authority - Check out this study I didn't read or verify that was written by two conservative think tank employees in a private student published newsletter with "Harvard" in it's name that is not sanctioned by Harvard University proper. http://www.harvard-jlpp.com/about/

4. Argument from ignorance - if only the teachers had been armed, this tragedy would have been averted.

5. Denying the Antecedent - Existing laws did not prevent this tragedy, therefore, new laws cannot prevent future tragedies.

6. Fallacy of Composition: You will never be able to stop all gun crime, therefore we shouldn't try to stop some gun crime.

7. Red Herring: More people are killed in automobile accidents than are killed by gun enthusiasts. Should we ban cars too?

@drk421 You've been duped. That study isn't from Harvard.

It's from a student newsletter entitled. "Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy"

ABOUT HARVARD JLPP

The Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy is published three times annually by the Harvard Society for Law & Public Policy, Inc., an organization of Harvard Law School students.

The Journal is one of the most widely circulated student-edited law reviews and the nation’s leading forum for conservative and libertarian legal scholarship.

The late Stephen Eberhard and former Senator and Secretary of Energy E. Spencer Abraham founded the journal twenty-eight years ago and many journal alumni have risen to prominent legal positions in the government and at the nation’s top law firms.

@bareboards2 It takes strength to admit when you were wrong, sure. However, the inability to see things from anothers perspective until it has the chance to directly effect you doesn't make you wise, it makes you not stupid. That Joe has changed his mind on this particular issue is admirable but the reasons for him changing his mind are not. His newly found empathy will find no greater application than this particular issue and so he continues blindly on a moral path correcting his way only when he directly encounters something near and dear to himself. Wisdom would dictate that he has actually found a new principle with which to act that a great many things in his world are subject to.

I know I am banging on about morality etc (I study morality so I can't help it) but so much of the language used in this kind of debate is moralistic and as such everyone thinks they privy to some sort of objective truth that just happens to agree with their personal beliefs. We can't all be right.

The thumbnail image for this video has been updated - thumbnail added by dag.

Nope. I think all forms of regulation will have little to no effect given how widespread guns are. As I said, there will be no improvement in this lifetime for the US and people need to accept it.

Even in the impossible scenario that guns were largely banned nationwide and a generous guns for cash scheme was put in place, which is what has happened in some other countries, it would take decades for any meaningful effect to be felt.

Which is why my original post said that if you are genuinely concerned about this, there is no alternative to emigrating.

The issue is not Newtown, Virginia Tech, Collumbine or any freak killsprees of any of the deranged people you mentioned. The issue is the steady but reliably high murder rate enabled by the high supply of guns in the market.

These public incidents have done little to nothing more than giving pundits and casual observers an excuse to get high on their own cathartic tear gushing.

Leave it to Americans to have a nation wide debate over the logic that "more guns = more gun violence". It astounds me the volume of Americans blindly defending their idiotic right for guns.

I like guns, I think they're cool, but I'm not deluded enough to not know the fact that they are designed for killing! That is their single purpose. They are not a fucking toy (may seem obvious but jesus, so many Americans seem to forget this fact). There HAS to be regulations and very strong restrictions when weapons (remember, their sole purpose is killing) are concerned. There are more regulations and restrictions for owning a car than owning a gun, for fuck sake.

There needs to be regulations like:
You must have licence to own a firearm with different types of licences for different and more advanced weapons, if you want to be a legitimate collector. You must be trained in proper firearm usage and safety and pass a test to get a licence. Maybe even undergo a psyche test if you want things like assault rifles. Every firearm must be registered, then you are responsible for that firearm, and any unregistered firearms should be confiscated and destroyed. Then more advanced weaponry must be stored in something locked and secured.
If you think regulations like these are draconian, you're a tool.

@RedSky, I get what you're saying, but does that mean they shouldn't even bother trying? If they want to fix the situation, they have to start, no matter how long it might take

We agree 100%. When I first watched this, I was disgusted that he could only see the need for some sort of regulation when it got personal TO HIM. And I agree about the morality stuff.

All I was trying to say is -- if we want him, as a person, to continue with his change of opinion, then we have to careful not to denigrate him, especially to his face.

And I was hoping that by gently pointing out to him that empathy can be for more than just our clones, that it might spark a new thought in his head. While he was experiencing something new -- empathy for others.

I don't think he is wise. I think he needs teaching.

Teaching shouldn't be an "Armed" profession... and any teacher that wants to bring a gun to school isn't someone that I'd want working near kids.

The buzz surrounding this event seems to be headed down the road that led to further firearms on the ban list.

The Miasma from Chicago has always been in favor of gun control measures which do nothing to address causes but minimally treat symptoms and the whims of those who would control humans by eliminating choices along with personal responsibility. He's discussing it right now using fake tears and more than a few examples of the retarded logic that dystopiafurtdy here posted above. It's insulting both to my intelligence and sensibilities to be addressed by a U.S. President, like a blind child with down syndrome.

Cerberus Capital Management, a New York-based investment firm that that owns the largest U.S. gun maker Freedom Group (Bushmaster, Remington) is poised to sell, while stocks in Sturm, Ruger & Company has increased more than 700 percent (Smith and Wesson, 253% ) since Obama was elected in 2009. Not very wise stewards of those pensions for teachers, California!.....The same retarded ban on firearms in California happened back when I lived in San Francisco. One lone gunman walks into the 101 California Street building and kills a few peeps with a variety of guns and "BOOM!", people who don't know how to use a shovel properly, acting on emotions and severely compromised common sense,support bans on a whole spattering of guns, ammo, etc., because on-accounta it was so horrible and was apparently the gun's fault Now SOH Feinstein is at it again, another fractured piece of out-of-touch, privileged human pieces of garbage appealing to emotions rather than reason, and playing the game she was placed in position to play.

Dipshits?? No, same intentional, systematic plans like the Brady Bill and the National Assault Weapons Ban, a knee-jerk, and well-timed coup on individual rights relative to protecting oneself and family.

How about for STARTERS, "Anyone ever treated for mental illness or prescribed anti-psychotic or psychotropic drugs for the treatment of the same, can't even be around anyone with guns, much less purchase them. That would stop MOST of these random acts of carnage.

I won't even begin to mention in detail the amount of illegal firearms on the banned lists-to-date that are in the hands of drug dealers, pimps, gang members, etc. and the insanity of THAT subset of society, COPS, and SOLDIERS being the only people with that kind of monopoly on firepower. Fuck that shit. Time is nigh to becoming a criminal or expatriate.

Thank you. I became increasingly astonished during reading that harvard would publish something like that. Dubious numbers, loaded language throughout and a complete disregard of correlation vs. causation had me scratching my head the whole time.

Take away the guns and I will:
stab you,
choke you,
bludgeon you,
poison you,
bomb you.

Guns don't kill people, people kill people.

Meanwhile, in Great Britain..
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/08/bats_the_way_it_is_for_unarmed_britons.html

Oh my! You are a tool. How about these gems while you're at it:

"Only from my cold dead hands"
"Molon Labe"
"I have a headache 'this big' and it has Excedrin written all over it"

...you know, since you're spouting marketing soundbites, might as well get all the classics in there.
How about, "my baloney has a first name, it's O S C A R,"

I'm beginning to suspect that the reason you never offer anything of substance in your comments isn't because you're an ideological conservative who staunchly believes in the right wing talking points...it's because you're an idiot who's easily taken in by simple rhetoric.

I don't have a problem with his statement-Though cliched to a degree the point is obvious and from the looks of your rant you've got personal issues with this user or his simplified statement of what should be obvious to anyone with a larger proportion of neocortex, with disproportionate enlargement of pre-frontal and temporal association cortices than lower apes.

"I love to eat it everyday, and if you ask me why I'll saaaaaaaayyyyyy...!" (fill in the last line with more baloney!)

My biggest beef with this video besides it's content is the object pronoun in the title. What exactly IS "IT??" Looks like what he got was delusional pancakes with a side of fear-baiting sausages for breakfast.

Guns don't kill people. people WITH GUNS kill people.

Sorry @bobknight33 your shitty arguments don't fly...again. We don't have a stabbing/choking/bludgeon/poison/bombing epidemic, we have a firearms epidemic.

I will GLADLY say bobknight was right if the amount of gun murders gets replaced with an EQUAL amount of stabbing/choking/bludgeon/poison/bombing deaths. It has to be equal because if even one life is saved with an assault weapons ban then IT'S FUCKING WORTH IT YOU SELFISH PIECE OF SHIT!

Let's address those, shall we?

So first you're going to stab, choke or bludgeon me?

You're welcome to try, son.

You have to get close to me. You have to over power me. You have to do this in a way that stops others from stopping you. I don't for a second believe you're capable of that.

You want to poison or bomb me?

This takes dedication, planning and materials. None of which the average unstable individual usually has. Are there a few dyed in the wool nutjobs with resources? Sure but there's a lot less of them, and having to procure the materials for the acts makes it a lot easier to catch them.
It's almost as if controlling bomb and poison making materials worked...

The US attitude to guns is what scares me the most. There are plenty of people in other countries with guns, but almost all of them have guns for a specific reason, like hunting or target shooting.

Only in the US have I met people who own guns for "home defence". As such, you get people who really don't have a clue how to safely operate a gun and who believe it's a magic talisman that keeps them safe. It's bullshit, and frankly, it's time you grew the fuck up and realised you're not in an action movie.

Wait, has it been established that the killer was an avid gamer? That would make him completely typical, of course, but still I hadn't heard that.

I honestly don't think that video game or Hollywood violence is to blame for this. I think REAL violence, glorified by the news media, has far more impact, because most mentally ill people can tell the difference between fantasy and reality.

I think the blame falls squarely on our inability to identify serious mental health issues and easy access to semi-automatic firearms.

gaming/hollywood has always been the scapegoat. If you're a shitty parent, it's far easier to pretend that some outside influence made it happen than to actually ask the hard questions and admit that shitty parenting played a role.

If video games truly had a causal effect, we'd have shootings way more frequently than we do now. Everyone plays video games these days, young/old/guys/girls.

It's no different from when parents back in the day blaming rock and roll for their kids' behavior.

Usually no one reads comments this far down, but I'd like for the pro-gun people to weigh in on these six specific policies, and see if maybe they still sound like reasonable policies to you guys. (Borrowing entirely from here)

1. Ban people on the terrorist watch list from legally buying guns.
   
2. Require background checks on every gun sale.
   
3. Ratify the UN Arms Treaty to tamp down on gun trafficking from the U.S. to Mexico.
   
4. Allow the public to access the FBI's database of guns used in Federal crimes.
   
5. Ban guns in bars.
   
6. Allow any business to legally bar people from bringing in firearms.
   

@bobknight33 How many kids would have died if this guy could only "stab you,
choke you,
bludgeon you,
poison you,"?

I doubt he had the nous to make a bomb.

You forgo the good for the sake of the perfect.

You are implying shitting parenting a cause of this incident. What you are really saying that the parents had low moral standards. What you really saying in you coded message is Those who don't believe in GOD.

Your one of those GOD less people. That sets you up to be yet another shitty parent of low moral fiber.

You either have a moral society or what the liberals have turned this country into over the last 70 years.

If your not American then who gives a fuck what you think.
Its like me telling a pregnant woman that I understand how she feels.

In America the more legally armed citizens there are the safer our society will be.

How many people would have died if the employed people were allowed to have legally Concealed Carry Weapons onto the work site for protection?

Hah, I never noticed it before but Bob really is an autistic person. It is like giving a backwater hillbilly an apple tablet and a roaming internet stick and giving free reign to express the hillbilly thought process. Funny thing, it seems though that the hillbilly can spell.

awww, did I upset your poor gun-loving sensibilities? Diddums.

BWAHHAHAHAHAHHAAHA.

And how many more people would die if they were allowed to bring guns to work? How many people would get fired? How many bosses would have the balls to fire someone? How well would job interviews go? How many other questions are needed to highlight the absurdity of your argument?

looks like somebody needs a checkup from the neck up.

You notice he said "legally" armed citizens. He must be for big government if he thinks the law can determine appropriate ownership. And of course as we all know people who legally own guns do not commit crime.

Calm down there Bob, wouldn't want you to get all angry and shoot up a school or something.

Tell me Bob. in your moral society, do they have lessons in grammar? How bout lessons in making accurate analogies? Or is that too much "book lernins" for you?

We must have really touched a nerve there, I think his grammar goes out the window when he's angry.

@bobknight33

Why do you hate America?

If you think that people kill people, not guns, and that people will "find a way" if they want to kill someone then what follows is that you are accusing Americans of being far more naturally violent people than all other Western societies. How else can you account for the HUGE difference in murder rates?

Is that your best argument?

Obviously not, Bob. All the good arguments didn't penetrate your shield against new information. So he tried something different out of frustration.

Just in case you didn't realize what was going on. Since you don't seem to track new information very well.

@pumkinandstorm -- this is an example of me NOT being easygoing. Told ya.

The perpetrator of this crime stole his weapons from his mother’s house after murdering her. He tried to buy a rifle days before, but was turned down.

No law could have stopped that short of disarming all law-abiding Americans. And that would just mean more death and carnage – and the end of liberty for all.

The massacre at Sandy Hook could have been minimized, if not averted completely, if just one teacher or administrator at the school was armed.

On Oct. 1, 1997, Luke Woodham, 16, part of a satanic cult, stabbed and bludgeoned his mother before driving her car to Pearl High School in Pearl, Miss., where he shot dead two students and wounded seven others with a rifle he made no attempt to conceal. He then got back into his mother’s car and planned to go to Pearl Junior High School to kill some more. But assistant principal Joel Myrick retrieved a .45-caliber pistol from the glove compartment of his truck and subdued Woodham.

On Jan. 16, 2002, Peter Odighizuwa, 43, of Nigeria, went to the Appalachian School of Law campus in Virginia with a handgun and killed three and wounded three others. At the sound of gunfire, two other students – both police officers – retrieved guns from their cars. Meanwhile, another police officer and former Marine jumped Odighizuwa and disarmed him by the time the other officers got to the scene.

On Aug. 23, 1995, a band of crack cocaine addicts entered a store in Muskegon, Mich., with a plan to kill everyone and steal enough cash and jewelry to feed their habit. One member of the gang shot store owner Clare Cooper in the back four times. He still managed to grab his shotgun and fire on the gang as they fled. They were all apprehended.

On Dec. 9, 2007, a 24-year-old gunman named Matthew Murray launched an attack on the congregants of the New Life Church in Colorado Springs that left two victims dead. A former police officer, Jeanne Assam, a member of the security team for the church, shot Murray 10 times, killing him, as he was shooting at her. Murray had killed four others at a church 70 miles away earlier in the day.

On July 24, 2012, Richard Gable Stevens rented a rifle at a shooting range in Santa Clara, Calif., and herded three employees out the door, saying he intended to kill them. One of the employees, however, was carrying a .45-caliber handgun and shot the assailant.

On Dec. 17, 1991, two men armed with stolen pistols herded 20 customers and employees of a Shoney’s restaurant in Anniston, Ala., into a walk-in refrigerator and locked it so they could rob the establishment. However, one customer was armed with a .45-caliber handgun hidden under a table. He shot one of the gunmen dead. The other robber, who was holding the manager of the restaurant at gunpoint, began firing at the customer. But he was wounded critically by return fire, ending the incident.

On July 13, 2009, an armed man entered the Golden Food Market in south Richmond, shooting and wounding a clerk while firing at store patrons. He was shot by another customer who had a concealed-carry permit, likely saving the lives of eight other people in the store.

On July 29, 2012, Charles Conner shot and killed two people and their dogs at the Peach Tree RV park in Early, Texas. Vic Stacy got a call from one of the neighbors, got his .357 magnum and shot Conner as he fired upon the first police officer to arrive at the scene. Stacy was credited with saving the life of the officer.

The truth is that every single day mass murders are averted by armed civilian

Yet, every time there is a horrendous slaughter like we saw at the Sandy Hook Elementary School, there is a knee-jerk outcry for stricter control of guns.

taken from http://www.wnd.com/2012/12/how-to-stop-the-slaughter-of-the-innocents/#oA9kiFClUvLJ8gIK.99

@bobknight33 go ahead and keep quoting articles from world net daily, it just punctuates how ridiculous it is to think that giving guns to teachers is somehow an answer.

@bobknight33

Jan. 21 2012, St. Charles Illinois; A gun owner with a concealed carry permit accidentally shoots a man through the chest after a night fundraiser at St. Patrick Catholic Church.

May 24 2011, Orlando Florida; A concealed weapon accidentally discharges in the lobby of a restaurant injuring 4 people injured, including a 4 year old boy and the gun owner. The owner had a concealed weapon permit.

November 9, 2012; Colorado University - a woman accidentally shoots a co-worker on the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical campus. The woman, who has a concealed carry permit, told police she bought the gun because of neighborhood concerns and recent campus thefts.

July 7 2009, Tampa Florida; While squatting down to use the toilet, the handgun of a woman with a concealed weapon permit falls out of her holster, hits the ground and discharges, shooting the woman sitting in the next stall.

January 24 2012, Dallas Texas; A 23 year old with a concealed carry permit accidentally drops his weapon while in line at a Walmart, injuring himself and 3 others, including 2 young children, when the weapon discharges.

We can do this all day. That's 1 google search and a few minutes of copy pasta.

More awesomesauce from World Nut Daily: Sandy Hook was an Obama consipracy.

You would rather have mass killings just to forgo an accident now and then.

Ugghh, I still hate your title bareboards2, flaming rhetorical hogwash.

To quote a Sifter from above....

Ah. Diddums.

Moronic.

sorry mate,meant to downvote bobknight's flaming jibberish-search