Ah, the old gun debate. A few stats for you to digest.

Gun homicides per 100,000 population

Australia:   0.14

England and Wales:  0.07

USA:   2.97

So... you are 42 times more likely to die by gunfire in the US as you are in the UK. I'm sure glad I live where I do

A copy of a response to this event in a yahoo news article. Don't worry.....I made it. I can't steal from myself....I think.

For what its worth. I too am 60. I grew up among the families in New York, 50's
and 60's. Back in the day this sort of thing did not happen, there was a helluva
lot more respect for people. Today.......there isn't any respect! Its a fuck you
hooray for me mindset. A product of individual environs. All crime, however you
describe it, has one commonality, a weapon. A gun is the weapon of choice because
you can't argue with one, you do or you die! Too many things were ignored for too
long a time by the powers that be, for whatever reason, and today's society
reflects that. Wake up folks. You have no one to blame but yourselves. You put
the ones in office, in power, that are responsible for this. If some one you are
paying to do a job doesn't do that job, actually fucks it up, you take that person
and throw him or her the hell out! Period! Then you put some one in there that
'WILL' do the job right. Unless you have forgotten, we the people pay their
salaries through the myriad taxes levied upon us. We Pay Them! Get it. Time to
take out the trash. Rant over.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1196941/The-violent-country-Europe-Britain-worse-South-Africa-U-S.html#ixzz2F4LRKtVV

Just to remind you, Wiz... Australians (especially their SAS) fight side by side with the SEALS in Afghanistan and did in Iraq and a thousand hell holes we don't even know of. They die for our "rights".

20 kids are dead who shouldn't be - explain your logic to them.

No, but it certainly helped.

I think he would have had a tougher time committing the same crime with a spoon.

The rest of the statistics are a smoke screen. The problem is violence and more specifically, gun violence.

Additional problems: An outdated, misinterpreted, misused and overused 2nd Amendment. Add to that the "Stand your ground" and "concealed weapon" idiocy.

What about this is incomprehensible? If you're a farmer and need a rifle for varmints, or a hunter providing food for your family you'll be screened for mental health issues. If you're ok...no problem. If not, you get treatment and when ok, no problem.

Everyone else? You have no need. The risk/benefit ratio says "No". Therefore "No". You're caught with an unlicensed weapon, you will REALLY regret it. End of story.

Read this:  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/15/nyregion/after-newtown-shooting-running-and-hoping-to-find-a-child-safe.html?ref=nyregion&_r=1&

Feel something besides, "I want/need a gun." Feel the terror those instruments of killing engender in normal people.

"Enough is enough."

Doc.. try to look at other peoples points of view...a little more.. off with the blinders... Ur point of view.. isnt. the only point of view.

It is.. not.. black and white.

God forbid someone does come at you, or someone you love, with a gun one day.

Im done in this thread.

Someone came at 20 kids...20 someones someone loved... with a gun.

Gun ownership did not help them.

Frankly there is no other 'point of view'.

All the chest-beating aside [yes, mine too], here's what you all need to think about.

Think of that cute/lovely nephew, neice, son, daughter, rug-rat ... the one everyone loves...but now not coming home from school again.  The sense of loss.

It's profound.

Now, do it again...for his/her classmate you met once or twice maybe.  Not coming home.

Then...again....the one he/she mentioned you hadn't met yet....and now won't.

....and 17 more.

There IS no understanding of how it happened....just as there is no understanding of how a society could be sufficiently flawed for it to happen.

Blame whom-ever you will.  Nothing reverses the reality.

People on 'any' side of a proverbial fence need to wake up a little and DO SOMETHING to try to guarantee it does not happen again.

Only you can decide, but I can assure you that WHEN it is closer to [your] home your stance will be tested.

Last week, 5 people died in a 'car crash' on the Geelong freeway.....6 young [to me] people in one car coming back from a party..... and one driver on the wrong side of a divided freeway apparently trying suicide-by-car [succeeding].  She died...but so did 4 people I'd met, one of whom was connected family-wise [indirectly]...she's dead at 24....survived by children. [nephew's wife's sister]

Real trauma happens.  That's life.  It's a responsible adult's obligation to ensure such things are as minimal as humanly possible.

If you really think more guns in public [uncontrolled] hands is a good thing then fine...go for it, but I will remain sceptical.

Connecticut already has the 5th toughest gun control laws in the country. More laws is not the answer but maybe better enforcement of the ones on the books is.

You can debate the need for tougher gun control laws if you want but before you decide that outlawing guns is the answer, here are a few thousand stories of how guns saved lives and provided home invasion protection.

Society is the problem. Fix the people. Fix the system that cares for the people.

Anyone in their right mind wouldn't commit such heinous crimes. (Fix the people.)  If he hadn't used guns, he would have found another weapon. (The spoon thing is ridiculous.)

Remember 9/11 and the boxcutter gang?  Just one case in point.

It ain't the guns, it's the people.

I'm done here too. This thread was about the little ones being needlessly slaughtered and has become a soapbox for gun control.

Yep. Society got into that school and shot the hell out of the kiddies.

Try this on for size, Jim: http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/12/14/1337551/michigan-guns-classroom/?mobile=nc

Good idea!

A better one would be to bring the Second Amendment to relevance. That's what the Constitution is designed to do: To be flexible enough to change and not break.

This thread was an open invitation to all to speak their minds and hearts with civility. I'm perfectly satisfied that each might have his own soap box.