Elementary School Shooting: Newtown, Connecticut. 28 confirmed dead, 18 were children

[michigan]

I agree.   One thing we could do  is treat an illegal gun like a oz of dope.  If you get caught with it your gonna go to prison for at least 10 years.  People  who get caught with illegal guns dont get much jail time.  the most time they get is 2 years in prison but mostly they only get a few months in jail.  smh yet a guy gets caught with a lb of weed and  gets more time in prison.  smh gun crimes need to be more harsh. 

 

[swendro]

View media item 172359

Guns increase you and your family's safety?


Tell me more about how Adam Lanza shot and
killed his mom with her own guns.


...

 

[thepointgod]

View media item 172359

Your argument has been made by anyone and everyone who claims they can predict criminal behavior and the existence of an out-of-control black market for guns, etc., but real numbers and real case studies don't lie.

In the U.S., since 1982, there have been at least 62 mass shootings across the country.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/07/mass-shootings-map

Countries with strict gun control or bans:

In England, three mass shootings. (1987, 1995, 2010).
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10216955

In 1996, Australia banned semi-automatics. In the 18 years before, there were 13 mass shootings. Since then, none.
http://jeffsachs.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Australia-Gun-Law-Reforms.pdf

Japan has a strict gun ban and there are very few gun-related crimes, period, let alone mass shootings.


Edit: Oh, and while these shooting sprees were happening in our country, how many times did we organize into armed militias to fend off the U.S. government from oppressing or exterminating all of us?

 

[thebsprky]

If the right to bear arms is taken from us then what is to stop the government from pulling a holocaust type event to there own citizens.

Not trying to debate you here... but they can do that NOW if they wanted to WITHOUT removing firearms from the citizens of this country.

Think about it.

RIP to those that lost their lives.

This.

and with drones out, guns won't do much help

I don't see why the government would want a holocaust type of event

"they" need "us", the plan is to not get rid of us, just for us to follow

Who else is gonna support their greed?

 

[dt43]

That was Ben Rapelisbergers whole statement though. If we change ourselves then it changes the country.

No one is reading anything.


Secondly, aren't the "fellows" of the world the ones that walk into random places and kill other random "fellows"
We're all connected, stop thinking youre different from anyone else.

First, the notion that everyone can change and thus change the country will change is sadly, unrealistic. Its not going to happen. The U.S. will never be the same. Im sorry, but thats reality.

Secondly, we are NOT all connected. Dudes spending their grocery store paychecks to cop the latest foamposites are in no way connected to people in poverty stricken nations who are starving to death. The only connection is that they both happen to be human beings. But in the grand scheme of things, that means nothing. Humans have been slaughtering and conniving (sp) each other since forever . But now that we have youtube and such everyone thinks they know everything. Unless youre sacrificing your own well-being to support others, you have no right to call others cynical becUse theyre taking a realistic stance on the world. While there are a lot of good people in the world, most are not.

The notion that we are all connected is false. No one living outside of North America feels connected to Americans. Trust that there are millions of people across the globe who REJOICED when they heard the news that a bunch of American kids were gunned down for no reason. Its harsh but thats the world. If youre looking for a utopia you will be dissapointed. No one who posts on Niketalk has the ability or the resources to change the world. Thats just keeping it real

I was mainly focusing on dudes comments comparing what happened in connecticut to whats happening in the middle east in regards to the u.s. military. While what he is sayig is true, it doesnt mean that we as Americans cant feel sad and distraught over what happened

Newsflash to a lot of yall; the world hates America and most are happy to see the coutry crumbling. I hope the U.S. goes back to the way it once was, but a quick look around NT General will surely confirm that it will not. We have topics on 2chainz footwear choices, kanye west's wardrobe, etc. thats what the U.S. is now; infatuation with celebrities and not a damn given about the state of our country. While i do not agree with nor take part in that nonsense, im not on some type of high horse claiming that things will change "if only everyone would be nice to each other"... Its going to take a lot more than that.

Cynical as hell bruh. No offense, but this is clearly a post written by a person who doesn't often expose themselves to varying viewpoints and perspectives.

 

[meek meals]

 If the right to bear arms is taken from us then what is to stop the government from pulling a hallucuast type event to there own citizens.

. . . The fact that without us, there is nobody to consume and support the economy.

Lol @ hallucuast

 

[slimchicken]

The father of a victim right now speaking on CNN.

So.. sad.... so.. sooo sad...

 

[wawawowee]

Your argument has been made by anyone and everyone who claims they can predict criminal behavior and the existence of an out-of-control black market for guns, etc., but real numbers and real case studies don't lie.
In the U.S., since 1982, there have been at least 62 mass shootings across the country.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/07/mass-shootings-map
Countries with strict gun control or bans:
In England, three mass shootings. (1987, 1995, 2010).
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10216955
In 1996, Australia banned semi-automatics. In the 18 years before, there were 13 mass shootings. Since then, none.
http://jeffsachs.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Australia-Gun-Law-Reforms.pdf
Japan has a strict gun ban and there are very few gun-related crimes, period, let alone mass shootings.
Edit: Oh, and while these shooting sprees were happening in our country, how many times did we organize into armed militias to fend off the U.S. government from oppressing or exterminating all of us?
 

All well and good except when you look at the inverse of your argument.

In Israel, most everyone is armed as of 18 years old *virtually every household will have a firearm of some type). There are teens and young adults (off duty but doing army service) walking the streets with fully auto assault rifles yet gun related homicides, let alone mass shootings, are rare.

In Switzerland, all citizens are obligated by law to keep rifles in their homes since military service is mandatory. Yet, gun related homicides are virtually non existent. 

Same with Finalnd.

And Saudi Arabia. 

And Norway.

This is a cultural phenomenon, not a gun control issue. 

Will stricter gun laws cut down on mass shootings? Of course. (Maybe mass murders will just start building car bombs? Or pipe bombs?)

Will limiting all cars to 20 mph, cut down on car related deaths? Yep.

Will limiting the caloric intake of all residents cut down on obesity and heart disease? Most likely.

You see where I'm going?

 

[david bowman]

These shooting stress aren't committed by criminals...

Stop acting like 4 time felons are doing this

Some corner boy in Chicago is not getting illegal guns to go shoot up young children in class.

I just don't understand where people come up with the logic that strict gun laws wouldn't do ANY good or have an affect

 

[thepointgod]

All well and good except when you look at the inverse of your argument.

In Israel, most everyone is armed as of 18 years old. There are teens and young adults (off duty but doing army service) walking the streets with fully auto assault rifles yet gun related homicides, let alone mass shootings, are rare.

In Switzerland, all citizens are obligated by law to keep rifles in their homes since military service is mandatory. Yet, gun related homicides are virtually non existent. 

Same with Finalnd.

And Saudi Arabia. 

And Norway.


This is a cultural phenomenon, not a gun control issue. 

All you're showing is that, compared to other countries that have similar relaxed gun control laws, Americans have repeatedly demonstrated that we're irresponsible idiots who can't be trusted with guns, which is an argument that cuts in favor of stricter gun control.

Show me a country where there is strict gun control yet also numerous mass shooting sprees.

 

[3am scholar]

Guns increase you and your family's safety?
Tell me more about how Adam Lanza shot and
killed his mom with her own guns.
...

Hold on let me go ask him, oh wait.

 

[tommyicerocking]

Hours after the bloodshed at a Connecticut school, police stopped what would have been a second mass school-shooting on Friday, arresting an Oklahoma teenager plotting to kill dozens of his classmates.

Sammie Eaglebear Chavez, 18, told friends at Bartlesville High School that he wanted to lure their schoolmates and teachers to the gym and then open fire, according to officials.

He also claimed to have explosives he planned to detonate once police arrived.

A classmate overhead Chavez scheming on Thursday and cops arrested him early Friday before he could carry out his plan. A judge in the small city of Bartlesville, which lies about an hour north of Tulsa, ordered that Chavez be held on $1 million bail.

Investigators believe Chavez owned a Colt .45 handgun and had been researching how to obtain explosives and higher-powered firearms. He also frequently discussed the 1999 shootings at Columbine High school.

The motive for the plot was not immediately known. Investigators do not suspect the scheme was linked to or inspired by the shooting in Newtown, Conn., that left 20 children dead.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nat...ooting-police-article-1.1221032#ixzz2FA0cntrf

Spoiler: Warning%3A%20Spoiler!

View media item 172427

 

[shoelyesses]

Here's what i would like to be done. You can have the right to bear arms after you:
-Attend the mandatory 3 month training session.
-register every single gun you own with liability insurance
-pass a series of psychiatric exams over the course of a month (apart from the 3 month training session).
-you're given a thorough 8 hour long background check. not the 15 minute wait they have now.
-perform 24 hours worth of community service
After completing all the steps, congratulations you are now a licensed gun owner. After a year upon receiving your license your license will expire, and will continue to do so every 365 days your license is renewed. After which you'd have to re-register your guns, pass one or two psychiatric exams, and will be given another thorough background check. Failing to do so will result in your gun being deemed illegal and will result in there being a warrant for your arrest. If you feel, you won't be able to register before the 365 days, your local police station will hold your weapons for 90 days you until you're able to renew it. After which it will be handed to the fbi where it will be held for another 275 days. If after a year your license is not renewed you forfeit your guns.
That's what my law would look like if i were a law maker. I think it's pretty fair.

you do realize a vast majority of the crimes involving guns with legal owners arent done by the owners... So desite a GUN OWNER doing all this what would stop someone who isnt a gun owner from taking said gun and using it....?

Not only that what good will it do for all the murders caused by illegal gun possesions? Are ppl really saying we should insure make it hard for .0001% of murders committed by handguns... And who cares about the other 99.999%?

I mean it seems as ppl are saying the hell with the probably the same amount of ppl who died just from the time this happen to now in a city like a nyc a chicago etc... So long as we prevent make it harder for gun deaths in whatevertownoonesknows... utah. A place that has maybe 5 or 10 gun murders at max a year.

So basically in your plan we still would have tons of gun murders in about 99.999% of the uniited states population... but thats cool so long as we reduce the gun murders in areas where it is at 0.0001%

 

[wawawowee]

These shooting stress aren't committed by criminals...
Stop acting like 4 time felons are doing this
Some corner boy in Chicago is not getting illegal guns to go shoot up young children in class.
I just don't understand where people come up with the logic that strict gun laws wouldn't do ANY good or have an affect

Your argument doesn't make much sense then.

How are gun control laws (not banning guns at all which no one is advocating here) supposed to stop psychotic and suicidal individuals intent on committing mass murder? If it's not guns, they'll use bombs or poison or any other numbers of ways to kill people. 

They're psychotic and suicidal but they're not stupid. If they can't get easy access to guns then they'll think of other ways to murder en masse. Humans are creative creatures.

All you're showing is that, compared to other countries that have similar relaxed gun control laws, Americans have repeatedly demonstrated that we're irresponsible idiots who can't be trusted with guns, which is an argument that cuts in favor of stricter gun control.
Show me a country where there is strict gun control yet also numerous mass shooting sprees.

On the whole, we cannot be any more irresponsible than any other country.  We're all humans and we occupy the same bell curve. 

There's something specific to our culture that breeds this type of activity on a regular basis. The prudent thing would be to look into it and solve the underlying problems rather than come up with superficial solutions.

 

[lucasofwg]

Anyone one surprised that there was no camera footage released? Like of the shooter(s) walking into the building

Im sure a school in an upper middle class community would have cameras

 

[lyonbc1]

Anyone one surprised that there was no camera footage released? Like of the shooter(s) walking into the building

Im sure a school in an upper middle class community would have cameras

In all honesty, I would absolutely have no desire to see footage of a f****** scum of the earth lunatic killing children and adult women ....so even if there are cameras, some things don't need to be seen, its heartbreaking enough reading about this and watching news reports

This whole thing is sickening and I'm absolutely disgusted this kind of stuff continues to happen in the country most of us live in...6 and 7 year olds how can anyone even do such a thing?

 

[thepointgod]

On the whole, we cannot be any more irresponsible than any other country.  We're all humans and we occupy the same bell curve. 

There's something specific to our culture that breeds this type of activity on a regular basis. The prudent thing would be to look into it and solve the underlying problems rather than come up with superficial solutions.

So you think the prudent and responsible plan going forward is to "look into it"?

How is strict gun control a superficial solution? That's just your conclusory opinion based on no factual evidence. I just gave you multiple examples of countries that have adopted strict gun control laws and do not have rampant mass shootings.

You have yet to provide to me an example of a country than has banned guns yet its citizens are still acquiring guns and commit mass shootings. It baffles me that this isn't clear as day to anyone. If you have extremely strict gun control laws or a ban outright, it's been demonstrated to significantly reduce mass shootings and gun-related crimes.

 

[lyonbc1]

On the whole, we cannot be any more irresponsible than any other country.  We're all humans and we occupy the same bell curve. 

There's something specific to our culture that breeds this type of activity on a regular basis. The prudent thing would be to look into it and solve the underlying problems rather than come up with superficial solutions.

So you think the prudent and responsible plan going forward is to "look into it"?

How is strict gun control a superficial solution? That's just your conclusory opinion based on no factual evidence. I just gave you multiple examples of countries that have adopted strict gun control laws and do not have rampant mass shootings.

You have yet to provide to me an example of a country than has banned guns yet its citizens are still acquiring guns and commit mass shootings. It baffles me that this isn't clear as day to anyone. If you have extremely strict gun control laws or a ban outright, it's been demonstrated to significantly reduce mass shootings and gun-related crimes.

Taken from the article about how Japan has limited gun violence......

To get a gun in Japan, first, you have to attend an all-day class and pass a written test, which are held only once per month. You also must take and pass a shooting range class. Then, head over to a hospital for a mental test and drug test (Japan is unusual in that potential gun owners must affirmatively prove their mental fitness), which you'll file with the police. Finally, pass a rigorous background check for any criminal record or association with criminal or extremist groups, and you will be the proud new owner of your shotgun or air rifle. Just don't forget to provide police with documentation on the specific location of the gun in your home, as well as the ammo, both of which must be locked and stored separately. And remember to have the police inspect the gun once per year and to re-take the class and exam every three years.

that can be implemented here, unless the NRA has something to say...and thats another cultural aspect of American society that is ridiculous to me as well, how the NRA has soooo much political sway on elected officials.

Contrast that process with how easily one can obtain a legal firearm in my state, Pennsylvania:
You walk in the store, have a valid drivers license...they run a background check to see if you have been arrested, and if you pass voila, literally I could have a gun in 40 minutes if I wanted to. So let's say a person is a hot headed individual....they can at the spur of a moment, walk into a gun store (not having a record) and easily pass a background test, lie about their intent ( not even necessary but still) with no time to cool down or think about their situation....and walk out all in less than an hour. Makes ZERO sense how lax some of these gun purchasing procedures are.

 

[BANLEU]

So you think the prudent and responsible plan going forward is to "look into it"?
How is strict gun control a superficial solution? That's just your conclusory opinion based on no factual evidence. I just gave you multiple examples of countries that have adopted strict gun control laws and do not have rampant mass shootings.
You have yet to provide to me an example of a country than has banned guns yet its citizens are still acquiring guns and commit mass shootings. It baffles me that this isn't clear as day to anyone. If you have extremely strict gun control laws or a ban outright, it's been demonstrated to significantly reduce mass shootings and gun-related crimes.

Oh really? Let's take a look at Mexico, which has some pretty strict gun laws. I've highlighted the important parts in case you don't want to take 2 mins to read this article.

MEXICO CITY — Juan García relinquished his cellphone, walked through two metal detectors, registered with a uniformed soldier — and then finally entered Mexico’s only legal gun store.
Related

To anyone familiar with the 49,762 licensed gun dealers in the United States, or the 7,261 gun-selling pawn shops, the place looked less like a store than a government office. Customers waited on metal chairs near a fish tank to be called up to a window to submit piles of paperwork. The guns hung in drab display cases as if for decoration, with not a single sales clerk offering assistance.

The goal of the military-run shop seemed to be to discourage people from buying weapons, and even gun lovers like Mr. García, 45, a regular at a local shooting club, said that was how it should be.

“If you want to stop someone who gets mad at their wife or the world from running out and buying a gun and killing everyone, you have to make it hard,” said Mr. García, who waited two months for the approval to buy a .38-caliber pistol. “It’s the only way to make people think.”

Mexicans and Americans share many things — a love for pickup trucks, beef, national flags and family — but when it comes to guns, the two countries are feuding neighbors. Each has its own vastly different approach for controlling firearms, and while neither the restrictive gun laws in Mexico nor the more permissive model in the United States has stopped bullets from flying, people on both sides of the border always ask why the people next door are so terribly violent.

Americans look at Mexico and see a country of relentless bloodshed, where heads are rolled into discos, where mutilated bodies show up a dozen at a time and where more than 60,000 people have been killed since the government began its assault on drug traffickers in 2006.

But Mexicans see their northern neighbor as awash in violence, too. They look with amazement at the ease with which guns can be purchased in the United States and at the gory productions coming out of Hollywood, and they shake their heads at the mass shootings last year in Tucson and last week in Aurora, Colo.

Why, Mexicans ask, don’t Americans tighten their gun laws? Doing so, they say, would stanch the violence both in the United States and in Mexico, where criminal groups wreak havoc with military-grade weapons smuggled in from the United States.

President Felipe Calderón has in fact been hammering this message for years, with ever more zeal. In February, he unveiled a three-ton billboard in Ciudad Juárez — made from crushed, confiscated guns — with the message “no more weapons,” written in English, and easily visible from the Texas side of the border.

This week, he also used Twitter to respond to the Colorado massacre with a similar demand. “Because of the Aurora, Colo., tragedy, the American Congress must review its mistaken legislation on guns,” he wrote. “It’s doing damage to us all.”

The United States-Mexico gun divide was not always so wide. Article 10 of Mexico’s 1857 Constitution declared, much like the American Second Amendment, that “every man has the right to bear arms for his security and legitimate defense.” But since then, the country has veered from the American model.

The 1917 Constitution written after Mexico’s bloody revolution, for example, says that the right to carry arms excludes those weapons forbidden by law or reserved for use by the military, and it also states that “they may not carry arms within inhabited places without complying with police regulations.”

The government added more specific limits after the uprisings in the 1960s, when students looted gun stores in Mexico City. So under current law, typical customers like Rafael Vargas, 43, a businessman from Morelos who said he was buying a pistol “to make sure I sleep better,” must wait months for approval and keep his gun at home at all times.

His purchase options are also limited: the largest weapons in Mexico’s single gun store — including semiautomatic rifles like the one used in the Aurora attack — can be bought only by members of the police or the military. Handgun permits for home protection allow only for the purchase of calibers no greater than .38, so the most exotic option in the pistol case here consisted of a Smith & Wesson revolver selling for $803.05.

Mr. Vargas, like some other customers, said the rules were a tad overbearing. “It’s too hard to get a gun here,” he said. But he added, “In the United States, it’s far too easy.”

Many Mexicans acknowledge that Mexican violence would not disappear even if American laws were more restrictive. “If the criminals didn’t get their guns from the U.S., they would just get them from somewhere else,” said Mr. García, the gun club member.

The worst mass murderers in Mexico and the United States also look very different to people here. Gustavo de la Rosa, a human rights investigator in Chihuahua, the border state that includes Ciudad Juárez, said that the surge of mass killers in both countries was the result of societies that divide the population into winners and losers, in which “there are a lot of ways to lose and very few ways to win.”

But he said, “The losers in the United States are condemned to lose — like in the Greek tragedies, they have no salvation — and they kill out of vengeance against the society that has beaten them.”

In Mexico, Mr. de la Rosa said, “our monsters complete an objective,” killing because it is a job that helps them earn more money, rise from poverty or satisfy a boss looking to intimidate rivals in the abyss of organized crime.

Regardless of motivation, Mexicans all over the country say this much is clear: Mass murders reflect and reproduce a culture of violence in which killing is glorified as a way to achieve fame, fortune or both. Even in Mexico’s gun store, and at the premiere of the latest Batman movie on Monday night in Mexico City, there was more concern about family values than gun laws.

Many people said that the only way to stop severe violence was to make sure that in both Mexico and the United States, the costs of heinous crime outweigh the perceived benefits.

“It’s an issue of collective conscience,” said Gildardo Olazaran, 31, Mr. García’s nephew, who accompanied him to the gun store. “Our best hope is to make it like tobacco — something that used to be cool.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/25/w...approach-to-gun-laws.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

This is a prime example of how strict gun laws do not necessarily reduce gun violence. What you and others fail to understand is that stricter gun laws only make it more difficult for law abiding citizens to exercise their rights. Criminals and psychopaths are still going to find ways to get their hands on guns no matter what the law is.

Furthermore, the gun owners that purchase guns to commit these kinds of acts are the exception and not the norm. So you are basically advocating the we restrict the rights of 99.9% of law abiding gun owners because of the .01%. I'm sorry but that doesn't seem just, and it's a slippery slope that I would prefer that my government not go down.

 

[ksteezy]

I bet some of you would love to hop in a time machine back to the days of cowboys and gunslingers....guns were never meant as something to provide safety, they were meant as WEAPONS, weapons to harm and kill others....people want to put the spin of safety on it, but there is very little safety behind owning a weapon, because all it takes is bad judgement for you to pull the trigger on the wrong individual and kill an innocent person, how many times don't police officers do it and they are supposed to be well trained in how to use a firearm.

I wouldn't feel an ounce safer knowing that anyone around me can be carrying, i think it will create a huge sense of paranoia amongst the community.

 

[omega]

^ I like it.

The process to obtain a gun needs to be drastically.

 

[ccastro02]

you do realize a vast majority of the crimes involving guns with legal owners arent done by the owners... So desite a GUN OWNER doing all this what would stop someone who isnt a gun owner from taking said gun and using it....?

Which is why there should be some sort of liability insurance. I own a gun and nobody's grabbed mine. Know why? Cause i'm responsible. I don't carry it around, i don't leave it on the dresser, and it's never left in sight. I stash it in it's safe which is combination locked and key locked, and i also have a trigger lock which is also key locked. Ammo is also kept in a separate safe with a key lock.It's only used at the range. It's impossible for somebody that isn't me to get a hold on it. Why? because i'm a responsible gun owner. Your point is invalid.

Not only that what good will it do for all the murders caused by illegal gun possesions? Are ppl really saying we should insure make it hard for .0001% of murders committed by handguns... And who cares about the other 99.999%?

It's funny how you speak of illegal guns as if they're so easy to obtain. You do know it's by far much easier to walk into a **** sporting goods and buy your gun there than it is to find a gun dealer in the hood right? You do know they're cheaper in ***** sporting goods than they are on the black market right?

I mean it seems as ppl are saying the hell with the probably the same amount of ppl who died just from the time this happen to now in a city like a nyc a chicago etc... So long as we prevent make it harder for gun deaths in whatevertownoonesknows... utah. A place that has maybe 5 or 10 gun murders at max a year.
So basically in your plan we still would have tons of gun murders in about 99.999% of the uniited states population... but thats cool so long as we reduce the gun murders in areas where it is at 0.0001%

....and making guns more accessible and providing guns to everyone who wants them will reduce crime and murders... brilliant

 

[lyonbc1]

I bet some of you would love to hop in a time machine back to the days of cowboys and gunslingers....guns were never meant as something to provide safety, they were meant as WEAPONS, weapons to harm and kill others....people want to put the spin of safety on it, but there is very little safety behind owning a weapon, because all it takes is bad judgement for you to pull the trigger on the wrong individual and kill an innocent person, how many times don't police officers do it and they are supposed to be well trained in how to use a firearm.

I wouldn't feel an ounce safer knowing that anyone around me can be carrying, i think it will create a huge sense of paranoia amongst the community.

Exactly. People act like everyone owning a gun would reduce violence military officers and cops go through a lot of intense training and even they make mistakes....Average joe blow up the street would be much less adequately equipped to handle a firearm in a hostile situation. Guns are made to KILL plain and simple, they are not defense weapons, they are made to kill animals and human beings, no other purpose whatsoever. Me knowing any and everyone is strapped would make me even more scared than I am now in the wake of things like this

 

[lyonbc1]

So you think the prudent and responsible plan going forward is to "look into it"?
How is strict gun control a superficial solution? That's just your conclusory opinion based on no factual evidence. I just gave you multiple examples of countries that have adopted strict gun control laws and do not have rampant mass shootings.
You have yet to provide to me an example of a country than has banned guns yet its citizens are still acquiring guns and commit mass shootings. It baffles me that this isn't clear as day to anyone. If you have extremely strict gun control laws or a ban outright, it's been demonstrated to significantly reduce mass shootings and gun-related crimes.

Oh really? Let's take a look at Mexico, which has some pretty strict gun laws. I've highlighted the important parts in case you don't want to take 2 mins to read this article.

MEXICO CITY — Juan García relinquished his cellphone, walked through two metal detectors, registered with a uniformed soldier — and then finally entered Mexico’s only legal gun store.
Related

To anyone familiar with the 49,762 licensed gun dealers in the United States, or the 7,261 gun-selling pawn shops, the place looked less like a store than a government office. Customers waited on metal chairs near a fish tank to be called up to a window to submit piles of paperwork. The guns hung in drab display cases as if for decoration, with not a single sales clerk offering assistance.

The goal of the military-run shop seemed to be to discourage people from buying weapons, and even gun lovers like Mr. García, 45, a regular at a local shooting club, said that was how it should be.

“If you want to stop someone who gets mad at their wife or the world from running out and buying a gun and killing everyone, you have to make it hard,” said Mr. García, who waited two months for the approval to buy a .38-caliber pistol. “It’s the only way to make people think.”

Mexicans and Americans share many things — a love for pickup trucks, beef, national flags and family — but when it comes to guns, the two countries are feuding neighbors. Each has its own vastly different approach for controlling firearms, and while neither the restrictive gun laws in Mexico nor the more permissive model in the United States has stopped bullets from flying, people on both sides of the border always ask why the people next door are so terribly violent.

Americans look at Mexico and see a country of relentless bloodshed, where heads are rolled into discos, where mutilated bodies show up a dozen at a time and where more than 60,000 people have been killed since the government began its assault on drug traffickers in 2006.

But Mexicans see their northern neighbor as awash in violence, too. They look with amazement at the ease with which guns can be purchased in the United States and at the gory productions coming out of Hollywood, and they shake their heads at the mass shootings last year in Tucson and last week in Aurora, Colo.

Why, Mexicans ask, don’t Americans tighten their gun laws? Doing so, they say, would stanch the violence both in the United States and in Mexico, where criminal groups wreak havoc with military-grade weapons smuggled in from the United States.

President Felipe Calderón has in fact been hammering this message for years, with ever more zeal. In February, he unveiled a three-ton billboard in Ciudad Juárez — made from crushed, confiscated guns — with the message “no more weapons,” written in English, and easily visible from the Texas side of the border.

This week, he also used Twitter to respond to the Colorado massacre with a similar demand. “Because of the Aurora, Colo., tragedy, the American Congress must review its mistaken legislation on guns,” he wrote. “It’s doing damage to us all.”

The United States-Mexico gun divide was not always so wide. Article 10 of Mexico’s 1857 Constitution declared, much like the American Second Amendment, that “every man has the right to bear arms for his security and legitimate defense.” But since then, the country has veered from the American model.

The 1917 Constitution written after Mexico’s bloody revolution, for example, says that the right to carry arms excludes those weapons forbidden by law or reserved for use by the military, and it also states that “they may not carry arms within inhabited places without complying with police regulations.”

The government added more specific limits after the uprisings in the 1960s, when students looted gun stores in Mexico City. So under current law, typical customers like Rafael Vargas, 43, a businessman from Morelos who said he was buying a pistol “to make sure I sleep better,” must wait months for approval and keep his gun at home at all times.

His purchase options are also limited: the largest weapons in Mexico’s single gun store — including semiautomatic rifles like the one used in the Aurora attack — can be bought only by members of the police or the military. Handgun permits for home protection allow only for the purchase of calibers no greater than .38, so the most exotic option in the pistol case here consisted of a Smith & Wesson revolver selling for $803.05.

Mr. Vargas, like some other customers, said the rules were a tad overbearing. “It’s too hard to get a gun here,” he said. But he added, “In the United States, it’s far too easy.”

Many Mexicans acknowledge that Mexican violence would not disappear even if American laws were more restrictive. “If the criminals didn’t get their guns from the U.S., they would just get them from somewhere else,” said Mr. García, the gun club member.

The worst mass murderers in Mexico and the United States also look very different to people here. Gustavo de la Rosa, a human rights investigator in Chihuahua, the border state that includes Ciudad Juárez, said that the surge of mass killers in both countries was the result of societies that divide the population into winners and losers, in which “there are a lot of ways to lose and very few ways to win.”

But he said, “The losers in the United States are condemned to lose — like in the Greek tragedies, they have no salvation — and they kill out of vengeance against the society that has beaten them.”

In Mexico, Mr. de la Rosa said, “our monsters complete an objective,” killing because it is a job that helps them earn more money, rise from poverty or satisfy a boss looking to intimidate rivals in the abyss of organized crime.

Regardless of motivation, Mexicans all over the country say this much is clear: Mass murders reflect and reproduce a culture of violence in which killing is glorified as a way to achieve fame, fortune or both. Even in Mexico’s gun store, and at the premiere of the latest Batman movie on Monday night in Mexico City, there was more concern about family values than gun laws.

Many people said that the only way to stop severe violence was to make sure that in both Mexico and the United States, the costs of heinous crime outweigh the perceived benefits.

“It’s an issue of collective conscience,” said Gildardo Olazaran, 31, Mr. García’s nephew, who accompanied him to the gun store. “Our best hope is to make it like tobacco — something that used to be cool.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/25/w...approach-to-gun-laws.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

This is a prime example of how strict gun laws do not necessarily reduce gun violence. What you and others fail to understand is that stricter gun laws only make it more difficult for law abiding citizens to exercise their rights. Criminals and psychopaths are still going to find ways to get their hands on guns no matter what the law is.

Furthermore, the gun owners that purchase guns to commit these kinds of acts are the exception and not the norm. So you are basically advocating the we restrict the rights of 99.9% of law abiding gun owners because of the .01%. I'm sorry but that doesn't seem just, and it's a slippery slope that I would prefer that my government not go down.

Thats definitely true, the people doing these atrocious acts are in the small minority of gun owners, but owning a gun is a right that we have, it is not a requirement....I don't own a firearm and if anyone who is around me or my family does own a weapon, I want them to understand the SIGNIFICANT responsibility that comes with that. Think about it, you are purchasing a weapon( whose sole purpose is killing or injuring other people)...imo responsible gun owners should be behind any legislation to make it more difficult to obtain a firearm. Like what the hell is the rush?? Why does anyone need to be able to buy a gun in less than an hour like they can here in PA? Let the process take some time, if you're a hunter you can apply in the offseason, if you want to "protect your family" from a potential home invasion then you can wait too.

I shouldn't be able to buy an AR-15 online with a few clicks and have it delivered faster than a pair of sneakers, that's absurd.

 

[dt43]

Hours after the bloodshed at a Connecticut school, police stopped what would have been a second mass school-shooting on Friday, arresting an Oklahoma teenager plotting to kill dozens of his classmates.

Sammie Eaglebear Chavez, 18, told friends at Bartlesville High School that he wanted to lure their schoolmates and teachers to the gym and then open fire, according to officials.

He also claimed to have explosives he planned to detonate once police arrived.

A classmate overhead Chavez scheming on Thursday and cops arrested him early Friday before he could carry out his plan. A judge in the small city of Bartlesville, which lies about an hour north of Tulsa, ordered that Chavez be held on $1 million bail.

Investigators believe Chavez owned a Colt .45 handgun and had been researching how to obtain explosives and higher-powered firearms. He also frequently discussed the 1999 shootings at Columbine High school.

The motive for the plot was not immediately known. Investigators do not suspect the scheme was linked to or inspired by the shooting in Newtown, Conn., that left 20 children dead.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nat...ooting-police-article-1.1221032#ixzz2FA0cntrf

Spoiler: Warning: Spoiler!

View media item 172427

Of course, why wouldn't there be copycats? After all, the media has continued to glorify the killer by plastering his name and face everywhere and call him "infamous" etc. For all the kids out there who never got attention, something like this would be their dream.