The American gun Laws.....can it remain as it is?

You have the right to bear arms... as long as those bear arms ain't holding a gun.

On a related note, here is someone with the right to bear arms:

Desolous wrote: increased funding for mental health care and assessment. find those most likely to snap and get them help, and treat them.

too bad mental health funding has been cut severely over the past decade or so. its sad that things like this have to happen before it is brought back into the scope of legislative debate.

Bravo.

Andy Spalding wrote:
The one thing i cannot stand is when the actions of the minority ruin things for the majority. Because someone cannot behave right that means that no one gets to have their fun.

Isn't that always the case? The wrong people get punished because "Something has to be done about this!"

This is a horrable event! Children being involved cuts into us deeply. It is still an isolated event among millions and millions of people. Ugly as it is it is small. Huge emotion but small.

How many chidren are killed from, abuse, car acidents, neglect, alcohol & drugs, faulty or inaproaprate sports equipment, Mc Donalds and other junk food. While this is soul wrenching ther are some many other ways we can save children than changing guy laws.

Having said that:

People with personality problems and mental illness shouldn't have accesss to guns leagel or other wise.

The guns he got should have been locked up and he shouldn't have acess to the key.

How was he able to get in the school?

Now who are the bad peple?

Not stating this as an argument one way or the other but I've never really liked the "its just a tool" argument about guns. If guns served some purpose other than harming, killing, or destroying I'd be willing to accept it. This isn't like an automobile where, yes it can be dangerous and harm and kill and destroy but that isn't its primary function and safe operation avoids these things. If you are operating a gun, regardless of care, you are doing one of those things.

Rickie wrote:

Desolous wrote: increased funding for mental health care and assessment. find those most likely to snap and get them help, and treat them.

too bad mental health funding has been cut severely over the past decade or so. its sad that things like this have to happen before it is brought back into the scope of legislative debate.

Bravo.

I do not share your enthusiasm. Mental health has been used to falsely imprison a lot of people in the past. You'd be replacing "you can't shoot without a gun" with "you can't shoot with a straitjacket on".

Red Lila wrote: If guns served some purpose other than harming, killing, or destroying I'd be willing to accept it.

If we are going to use that then we might as well lump bows and arrows and knives longer than 4 inches in there with them.

Why stop at 4 inches?

A foreign object only needs to penetrate 2 inches to be fatal...

That is not what I'm implicating, ren. I of all people know that all people with a mental illness are not evil, or monsters, or whatever. They/ I am sick. But we can get well. We can survive and with hard work, help from others and some luck, even thrive.

But the state of the field today is at the lowest point, funding wise, that it has probably been in generations, since people really were found 'insane', locked up and the key thrown away. Fewer professionals in the field (because it pays less/ less job stability) are being asked to do MORE now than in the past, for MORE people, all with LESS funding.

Its a sisyphean task. Herculean. And it leads to the events of the past couple of days sometimes. Cuz that kid bought that gun LEGALLY. Nothing could have stopped him from getting it and murdering dozens of people but early, consistent mental health counseling, usually began by others. And in a more perfect world, he himself would not be ashamed to find it, would not be bullied over needing help.

Oh well.

RyuJin wrote: Why stop at 4 inches?

A foreign object only needs to penetrate 2 inches to be fatal...

Yea, but knives 4 four inches long serve a purpose that is not killing people, such as cutting up my steak.

But if we are going to talk about banning things that cause death, lets talk about cigarettes. 81,000 deaths last year, in america alone. It's only purpose is killing.

Anyone know last years alcohol related deaths?

Anyway, what we need is better crazy control. Sure, lets tighten up gun laws, lets keep them out of the hands of crazies. However, lets see the logistics on a psyc eval for every gun owner and buyer. Who is going to pay for that?

Not to mention as it has been said earlier, crazy people are going to kill no matter what.