<p>sally,
I just want to point out that the info you provided is of limited value, as well. “Homicide” means death of a person, not necessarily by murder. It would include, for example, an intruder shot in self-defense by a property owner, or a murderer shot by police as he was trying to flee. We also don’t know from your data whether the homicide statistics would be any different if guns didn’t exist. We can’t conclude from the data that if guns went away, then all of those homicides would go away. A murderer might simply choose a knife or other weapon, instead.</p>
<p>There is plenty of regulation in terms of the rights of a fetus v. the rights of a woman to control her own body. Up to the end of the 3rd month, given the science, there should be NO regulation over what the woman does with her own body. In fact, until those waging THAT particular war get over it, they are going to continue to lose power.</p>
<p>Also, those who are making claims about who has the toughest gun laws, nobody has tougher gun laws than california. It is the gun law capital of the world. At least get your facts straight while you argue why you ought to be able to take away other people’s freedoms.</p>
<p>^ I am fascinated that prochoice lobby is usually anti-second amendment and vice versa. I think everyone deserves whatever rights they are fighting for, being a man and non gun owner. :D</p>
<p>The fact still remains our gun murders are far higher on a per capita basis than the rest of the civilized world, especially Western Europe. Because for some reason, we’re supposed to smile and indulge the fantasies of the most uneducated, backwoods people in our society – the people of the gun-racks-on-the-trucks-get-your-gubmint-hands-off-my-medicare yee-haws. Guess what - this isn’t the Wild West anymore. No one’s impressed by cowboys.</p>
Hmmm, I happen to be educated, don’t have a gun rack (or even a pickup truck), don’t live in a backwoods, am not anti-gubmint, and don’t even wear a cowboy hat or baseball cap yet I own some guns. I guess I must be an aberration.</p>
<p>Yeah, I’m not really sure, given those facts and addresses of gun owners out east printed by that newspaper, that everyone with a gun is from texas or a cowboy, and I’m not sure many of them say “yee haw,” either.</p>
<p>I personally find it fascinating when men advocate deregulation and the rights of the individual to lead a life free of intrusive laws… Unless those laws involve women, contraception and her rights to control her own body.</p>
<p>And just to nip this particular argument in the bud, I do not believe that life begins at conception. If you do, that’s a fine belief, and a reasonable path to guide your personal decisions.</p>
<p>Plenty of educated people have guns. Getting back to the topic of school shootings, many of the recent killers were educated too and certainly not the stereotype people might want to believe. </p>
<p>Unfortunately many of the extremists with the most vocal positions don’t come across as educated or intelligent at all.</p>
<p>It is so “enlightened”, open-minded, and just absolutely kind and brilliant to disparage a whole community or culture that one doesn’t understand and knows very little about. It really shows how incredibly intelligent and usefully educated one must be. <strong>tongue firmly planted in cheek, of course</strong></p>
<p>I thought of one thing: earlier in this thread a post noted that Columbine’s killing total may have been affected by a gunfight with the sheriff stationed at the school. (Note though that a police officer arrived 1 minute later.) This is the entire nature of the argument and of the “Texas solution”: possibly reduce the number of children killed. After the gunfight with the sheriff, they shot 22 kids. </p>
<p>I find the incident rather amazing to be used as an argument. The police officers didn’t sacrifice themselves to save children but acted like trained officers, firing, retreating and calling for backup even as a massacre proceeded. </p>
<p>I would love to see people accept the reality that they are prepared, absolutely prepared to tolerate massacres of children and other innocents. People have a hard time accepting their moral complicity.</p>
<p>The mother of the newtown shooter was attempting to get her son committed against his will. She had to go through a whole bunch of red tape and court situations to have this happen because we have laws on the book to protect the rights of the mentally ill. Would he have done what he did had he not had access to his mother’s arsenal? I doubt it.</p>
<p>If she was still alive, and hadn’t paid the price for her own idiocy of having weapons around someone she knew to be mentally ill, I would say she should go to prison for involuntary manslaughter. She is not alive.</p>
<p>Healthy people do not go and shoot children. So, while I would advocate that we need some laws on the books, whatever way we can legally get them, to make owning these arsenals less attractive, and to hold the people who own them liable, I also think we need to rethink how difficult it is for a family to get help with their mentally ill relatives until it is too late. This problem is complicated in many ways. The number of guns out there already is only one issue among many which needs to be, somehow, addressed.</p>
<p>ETA: I think 07s list points to the prevalence of guns in hunting country. Those who advocate protecting wildlife have also to understand that it is the hunters who have done the most to protect it over the last century, as well.</p>