Gun control discussion

[sasvermont]

Such nasty comments. I will not visit this place for a long time. Shame on you all.

[RICHARD]

[phesina]

Thank you, Richard!

[Miss Z]

Regarding the idea of 'using tragedies to push political agendas': I understand that the Republican/Democrat divide can run very deep on this forum. I would hope that those on either side of the political spectrum would not dust off their own stance on gun laws and then apply it to this tragedy, but rather acknowledge the tragedy, and all that it entails, and apply THAT to their stance on gun laws. What's the point of politics if it's unadaptable? What drives politics if not turmoil and outcry?

If parties and their supporters were to put age-old sentiment above what's happening here-and-now, then there'd be no point to any of them. I'd like to see opposing parties (in the UK too) work together a little more in times like this and set out clear goals for tackling crime, instead of using every tragedy to bicker about everything hypothetical and trivial, and thus achieve nothing.

[Puckstop31]

I can only begin to imagine what this father must feel like. But this man is my new hero. A story I am certain will not make the "usual" media outlets. (Nothing editorial here, links to the actual statements.)

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/grie...illers-family/

The light will always push away the dark.

[pomtzu]

I can only begin to imagine what this father must feel like. But this man is my new hero. A story I am certain will not make the "usual" media outlets. (Nothing editorial here, links to the actual statements.)

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/grie...illers-family/

The light will always push away the dark.

I saw this interview live on Saturday, and I had a difficult time holding back the tears. What a strong, amazing, compassionate and forgiving man. He's an inspiration to all.

[Lady's Human]

Regarding the idea of 'using tragedies to push political agendas': I understand that the Republican/Democrat divide can run very deep on this forum. I would hope that those on either side of the political spectrum would not dust off their own stance on gun laws and then apply it to this tragedy, but rather acknowledge the tragedy, and all that it entails, and apply THAT to their stance on gun laws. What's the point of politics if it's unadaptable? What drives politics if not turmoil and outcry?

If parties and their supporters were to put age-old sentiment above what's happening here-and-now, then there'd be no point to any of them. I'd like to see opposing parties (in the UK too) work together a little more in times like this and set out clear goals for tackling crime, instead of using every tragedy to bicker about everything hypothetical and trivial, and thus achieve nothing.

The real issue here is that gun laws wouldn't have prevented this, but better mental health care might have. It's almost impossible for a parent to legally commit a child, which is purely wrong.

[Bonny]

The real issue here is that gun laws wouldn't have prevented this, but better mental health care might have. It's almost impossible for a parent to legally commit a child, which is purely wrong.

Just turned on Katie. Two very loving forgiving parents were just interviewed. The father said the young man who did the shooting had it rougher then him. What a brave father he is & so forgiving. He has made the world a better place already. God Bless Him & All The People Affected By This Tragedy

[Catty1]

LH - have a look at the "I Am Adam Lanza's Mother" posted in this forum. It addresses the mental health aspect and the Dems are saying they have to look at that in addition to any weapons controls.

[Lady's Human]

Don't need to, I have a coworker who has a stepchild with severe bipolar. Took the child to the ER after the child physically assaulted both parents, had the police meet them there to restrain the child, and the ER doc refused to commit the child because 20 minutes after the attacks the kid was "just fine, there's no reason to commit the darling"

[lizbud]

Just turned on Katie. Two very loving forgiving parents were just interviewed. The father said the young man who did the shooting had it rougher then him. What a brave father he is & so forgiving. He has made the world a better place already. God Bless Him & All The People Affected By This Tragedy

I saw the program. I kinda wanted to get away from all the talk about this whole tragedy & there it was again. Katie did a good job
with the right spirit to have a talk to some ofthe people involved in the shooting. The Father was unbelievably kind & forgiving in his
talking about the shooter. Did you notice the Mother's reactions. She broke my heart. I wanted to put my arms around her. She is still
very much in shock & dealing with her loss of her daughter, minute by minute as she said, rather than day by day.

[blue]

http://api.viglink.com/api/click?for...13558259111754

A few things you won’t hear about from the saturation coverage of the Newtown, Conn., school massacre:

Mass shootings are no more common than they have been in past decades, despite the impression given by the media.

In fact, the high point for mass killings in the U.S. was 1929, according to criminologist Grant Duwe of the Minnesota Department of Corrections.

Incidents of mass murder in the U.S. declined from 42 in the 1990s to 26 in the first decade of this century.

The chances of being killed in a mass shooting are about what they are for being struck by lightning.

Until the Newtown horror, the three worst K–12 school shootings ever had taken place in either Britain or Germany.

Almost all of the public-policy discussion about Newtown has focused on a debate over the need for more gun control. In reality, gun control in a country that already has 200 million privately owned firearms is likely to do little to keep weapons out of the hands of criminals. We would be better off debating two taboo subjects — the laws that make it difficult to control people with mental illness and the growing body of evidence that “gun-free” zones, which ban the carrying of firearms by law-abiding individuals, don’t work.


Advertisement

First, the mental-health issue. A lengthy study by Mother Jones magazine found that at least 38 of the 61 mass shooters in the past three decades “displayed signs of mental health problems prior to the killings.” New York Times columnist David Brooks and Cornell Law School professor William Jacobson have both suggested that the ACLU-inspired laws that make it so difficult to intervene and identify potentially dangerous people should be loosened. “Will we address mental-health and educational-privacy laws, which instill fear of legal liability for reporting potentially violent mentally ill people to law enforcement?” asks Professor Jacobson. “I doubt it.”


Gun-free zones have been the most popular response to previous mass killings. But many law-enforcement officials say they are actually counterproductive. “Guns are already banned in schools. That is why the shootings happen in schools. A school is a ‘helpless-victim zone,’” says Richard Mack, a former Arizona sheriff. “Preventing any adult at a school from having access to a firearm eliminates any chance the killer can be stopped in time to prevent a rampage,” Jim Kouri, the public-information officer of the National Association of Chiefs of Police, told me earlier this year at the time of the Aurora, Colo., Batman-movie shooting. Indeed, there have been many instances — from the high-school shooting by Luke Woodham in Mississippi, to the New Life Church shooting in Colorado Springs, Colo. — where a killer has been stopped after someone got a gun from a parked car or elsewhere and confronted the shooter.

Economists John Lott and William Landes conducted a groundbreaking study in 1999, and found that a common theme of mass shootings is that they occur in places where guns are banned and killers know everyone will be unarmed, such as shopping malls and schools.

I spoke with Lott after the Newtown shooting, and he confirmed that nothing has changed to alter his findings. He noted that the Aurora shooter, who killed twelve people earlier this year, had a choice of seven movie theaters that were showing the Batman movie he was obsessed with. All were within a 20-minute drive of his home. The Cinemark Theater the killer ultimately chose wasn’t the closest, but it was the only one that posted signs saying it banned concealed handguns carried by law-abiding individuals. All of the other theaters allowed the approximately 4 percent of Colorado adults who have a concealed-handgun permit to enter with their weapons.

“Disarming law-abiding citizens leaves them as sitting ducks,” Lott told me. “A couple hundred people were in the Cinemark Theater when the killer arrived. There is an extremely high probability that one or more of them would have had a legal concealed handgun with him if they had not been banned.”

Lott offers a final damning statistic: “With just one single exception, the attack on congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson in 2011, every public shooting since at least 1950 in the U.S. in which more than three people have been killed has taken place where citizens are not allowed to carry guns.”

There is no evidence that private holders of concealed-carry permits (which are either easy to obtain or not even required in more than 40 states) are any more irresponsible with firearms than the police. According to a 2005 to 2007 study by researchers at the University of Wisconsin and Bowling Green State University, police nationwide were convicted of firearms violations at least at a 0.002 percent annual rate. That’s about the same rate as holders of carry permits in the states with “shall issue” laws.

Despite all of this evidence, the magical thinking behind gun-free zones is unlikely to be questioned in the wake of the Newtown killings. Having such zones gives people a false sense of security, and woe to the politician or business owner who now suggests that a “gun-free zone” revert back to what critics would characterize as “a wild, wild West” status. Indeed, shortly after the Cinemark attack in Colorado, the manager of the nearby Northfield Theaters changed its policy and began banning concealed handguns.

In all of the fevered commentary over the Newtown killings, you will hear little discussion of the fact that we may be making our families and neighbors less safe by expanding the places where guns aren’t allowed. But that is precisely what we may be doing. Both criminals and the criminally insane have shown time and time again that those laws are the least of the problems they face as they carry out their evil deeds.

— John Fund is a national-affairs columnist for NRO.