WHo was protecting Giffors when she was shot? I love the way the 2nd ammendment has been bastardized from bearing arms for the purpose of raising a militia to unregulated arms proliferation. An eqally important talking point, if not even more important, is piss poor way we provide health care to the mentally ill.

Welcome to the thread Mr. Orsini. I thought it was going stale but thanks for giving it some life :-).

Could you take a moment to explain why you referenced Congresswoman Giffords (I am assuming that is who you are referring to and leaving out the "d" was just a typo) and questioned who was protecting her. I just want to understand the point you are trying to make, assuming it has something to do with @Theodore mentioning The President, Congress, and Senate. The way I am reading your comment is that even though Giffords was protected by armed security, she was still shot. Correct me if I am wrong in this interpretation. Thanks in advance.....

Your comments have touched on so many points that I will only mention a few.
*An airplane's primary purpose is transportation. The primary purpose of a gun is to kill.
*There are many interpretations of the Second Amendment.

*The source of most illegal guns is not across borders, "...in 2009 ten states (Arizona, California, Georgia, Florida, Indiana, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and Virginia) supplied almost half the interstate-trafficked guns recovered at crime scenes. ..." - and - "...90% of the guns recovered from crime scenes in Mexico are traced led back to American dealers..."

For more gun sources: http://www.economist.com/node/17151375

Chairman: A couple of points
1) good news, glad to hear that.
2) Most of congress and senate alreadyhave UNRESTRICTED permits such as Feinstein and Schumer which allow them to carry ANY weapon.
3) as a father of 2 young children I applaud the idea of ARMED GUARDS...Israel has them and ZERO shooting in their schools.
4) your column was actually very well written and in my opinion unbiased and thank you for that.
5) lets examine the UK where guns are outlawed and more people are killed there by stabbings or very close to the number of shooting here in the US. A lot of ppl are comparing the U.S. to the U.K. but fail to make mention of the stabbings.

I travel to the UK for business and all you hear on the news is the amounts of stabbing throughout the UK and its not 1 time its multiple stabbings per person.

Correct. And apologies for the reply that was misplaced on your thread. You make a thoro analysis as usual. My complaints are as follows: the NRA has NEVER brought any constructive ideas to the debate, now or ever. Their recent suggestion of armed guards at every school, assuming that's an effective fix, who will pay? Did they offer? This is why there is such a noxious reaction to the NRA, and to position it as being a defender of liberty is a sad joke. Attempts to protect life trumps all in my book.

@Tony Orsini,

Tony, not sure why, but your replies are showing up in places that don't make sense. Not saying you are doing it but your reply to me hear appears to be a reply to Chairman Gopal's post just above. I have done it in the past but you have to click the first "reply" button that is higher up in the thread of the comment you are responding to.

Having confirmed what you meant, i.e. even though Giffords had armed security she was shot, I don't recall there being mention of any armed security in the Safeway parking lot where the Giffords shooting took place. The gunman was subdued by regular citizens when he fumbled around with his weapon after having dropped a magazine and then a handful of people got to him.

It is unreasonable for anyone to suggest that if armed security were indeed there that they would have been able to react fast enough to prevent her from being shot (not sure if she was the first one shot or not) but the possibility does exist that the gunman could have been stopped sooner than him creating the opportunity to be rushed by bystanders.

If armed security were indeed there, they might not have even fired at the shooter because of where he was in relation to the crowd he was surrounded by because of a lack of "a clear shot" at him. Catch 22 there since if you shoot and miss you risk hitting someone innocent whereas if you don't shoot, he just keeps picking people off.

(continued below.....)

There is no guarantee Giffords would have been any better protected, or any of those individuals killed or injured been spared a bullet but it would have definitely tilted the odds away from the gunman. If he had not stumbled and created the opportunity to be subdued, how many others would have been injured or killed? Nobody knows, neither does anyone know how many fewer had there been an equal amount of force responding to him.

I fail to understand the logic behind the notion that less good guys with guns makes people safer from bad guys with guns. This is not to say "everyone should be armed", absolutely not what I am saying. Instead, why is it not feasible to allow law-abiding citizens more effective means of defending themselves beyond waiting for law enforcement to show up when history shows, at no fault of their own, they tend to arrive after the body count has already begun to tally up, again, not saying there is insufficient support from law enforcement, it is just impractical to expect them to be able to respond to a "shots fired " coming across the radio fast enough.

As for the NRA, I do not carry water for them, I also do not support their leadership's call for Federally funded Armed Security in every school, we don't need yet another Federal program. What I do support is a collaborative conversation between local authorities, schools districts, and parents to determine what the best means is to protect the children in our schools. (continued)

Is it not a worthwhile effort to explore what a comprehensive security plan would look like, one that may or may not include dedicated law enforcement or armed security in our schools, determine what that plan or plans would cost and then leave it to the community to decide if that is a worthy price to pay for a security plan that stands a better chance of saving lives than one whose cornerstone is turning off the lights, hiding in a corner or closet, and praying the gunman doesn't choose "our little barrel of fish" to go fishing in.

You and I are not very far apart on this issue in principle Tony, that being "attempts to protect life trumps all in my book" as you said. We just seem to believe in different means to achieve that.

@Tony Orsin, in regard to your comment "My complaints are as follows: the NRA has NEVER brought any constructive ideas to the debate, now or ever. Their recent suggestion of armed guards at every school, assuming that's an effective fix, who will pay? Did they offer?", it seems they may have gotten the idea from somewhere else other than their own internal leadership.....

Then President Clinton, one year post Columbine.....
http://articles.latimes.com/2000/apr/16/news/mn-20323

You can't stop a madman who has an assault weapon and body armor with a handgun, unless we all start carrying assault weapons.

Latest available data: Georgia has 13.4 firearms deaths per 100,000; New York has 5.1 firearms deaths per 100,000. Well, go figure.

Don't know why anyone would compare a town of 30,000 to all of New York State just to prove an illogical theory.

Laura,

A single shot from most caliber handguns to the head of a "madman who has an assault weapon and body armor" would indeed stop him. That is not to say that every citizen legally carrying a handgun or even every police officer or security guard could place a single shot to the head of such a person in such a situation but it isn't logical to assume that such a person could only be stopped by someone else carrying a similar weapon.

As an aside, the firearms death rate as you mention (http://www.statemaster.com/graph/cri_mur_wit_fir-death-rate-per-100-000) is different than the firearms murder rate. The firearms death rate includes such incidents as "hey watch this" type activity which results in somebody being irresponsible and shooting themselves or someone else watching the "hey watch this" idiocy. You can't always ban stupidity unfortunately. When it comes to the firearms murder rate, New York doesn't fare as well against Georgia based on these 2011 statistics, http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/jan/10/gun-crime-us-state, which were derived from FBI data at http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011.

I don't pretend to have the definitive answer as to what would have prevented the Newton, Ct incident and my intention is not to be combative with you but absolute statements claiming you can't stop a madman with a handgun and cherry-picked statistics don't lend themselves to the debate.

I think yous have been watching to many of those cowboy/crime movies thinking you could shoot someone in the head with a pistol that easily. Most hand guns are designed to be accurate at 20 paces. So unless your within that distance and a good shot with all that adrenaline going through you in a highly emotional state of fear, anger, and terror bouncing you off the walls, I suggest you would be better off not playing out the Lone Ranger part...with somebody firing a semi automatic rifle at you from a 30 round clip, 60 yards away, and your going to take him out...with your 9mm Glock.

@spooner, unfortunately for you I have not been watching too much of anything and I also did not say it would be easy for someone to do such a thing. Your point is very valid that someone may not be able to react appropriately or potentially be as accurate during such a stressful situation. After all, the vast majority of people that are proficient with firearms have only shot at things that tend not to shoot back at them.

It would be disingenuous of me to suggest that any armed citizen, security guard, or even law enforcement officer could easily stop a gunman with a single shot, Lone Ranger style as you suggest, but I am suggesting it is indeed possible as opposed to Laura's somewhat definitive statement above.

It is very easy to establish the false premise that an armed individual couldn't alter the outcome of such a situation because he/she is 60 yards away with a 9mm Glock. But I guess because the odds of a successful shot at that particular distance in that scenario would be so low, we should accept that it is a better scenario would be having unarmed individuals shielding themselves with iPads and throwing #2 pencils at the gunman if they are not already ling on the floor on their back urinating on themselves to show they are submissive.

What it truly disingenuous is your unwillingness to admit that there may actually be some truth to the notion that if there is someone shooting at the bad guy, it might actually make it harder for the bad guy to shoot at innocent people.

Is it not possible that an armed good guy might cause enough problems or distractions for a bad guy that a few more children could climb out a classroom window, or give a teacher some more time to barricade a classroom door, or delay the gunman enough so that law enforcement can arrive at the scene, or maybe even, just maybe, wait for it.......... maybe get lucky enough to shoot the guy and drop him where he stands putting an end to the whole situation.

I think I can make the safe assumption that you would not be willing to accept that premise and the reason for that is your ilk care not to look at the reality of the situation that a gun in the hands of the right kind of people stand a better chance of stopping guns in the hands of the wrong kind of people. Instead you prefer to pass a useless law, ban a particular gun, or put up an ultra-threatening "gun free zone" sign thinking it makes a sh!t bit of difference when it doesn't, just so you and your like-minded friends can feel better about yourselves for having "done something".

I am not suggesting that everyone be armed to the hilt, it should be each law abiding citizen's choice as to how they go about defending themselves and their family as well as how communities go about protecting their public facilities and tilting the odds in their favor should a gunman choose their movie theatre, their shopping center, or even their school as a target.

Most firearm deaths are suicides which are good.

Thanks for getting back to me so fast,

I fully understand the role of a lobbyist, what I am struggling with is how either of the articles you link to give any support to your notion that the NRA is lobbying to allow people who fail background checks to purchase firearms or how they are trying to make firearms more accessible to the "mentally unstable".

While I do not necessarily support the NRA's recent statement calling for a Federally funded armed guard at every school as these matters are best left to be decided at the local level, I think it is a real stretch for you to suggest they and other pro 2nd Amendment lobbyists are intent on helping firearms manufacturers meet the demands of their stockholders (make money) by making it easier to sell guns to the "mentally unstable" as you suggest.

As for folks that "fail a background check" my guess is you are probably going down the path of the "gun show loophole" where private sellers are not required to do background checks in many States and someone that would be denied a firearm from a regular firearms dealer that must possess a Federal Firearms License can buy one from a private seller without a background check. A lot of States actually do require those checks be done by private sellers at gun shows, it is a State issue and the Federal Government getting involved in the "loophole" creates a slippery slope as to how far reaching their powers are in relation to what has been enumerated via the Commerce Clause.

It's not the murders "at the guns shows" I worry about its all of the people who can not pass a backround check (criminals, terrorists, mentally unstable) that purchase firearms at a gun shows or people that go to a state where unlimed quantities of guns can be legally pruchased and than sell them illegally in a large city such as New York.. Taking armed security away from the President is the craziest idea I have heard of in 2012. FYI, nobody wants to "disarm" everyone.

Good job by the police officer and this was reported in local and Texas newspapers but perps are shot by cops every day of the week and those stories do not get national coverage. This case was a little different where the guy apparently had targeted a specific person or persons in a restaurant and than happened to run into a theater.

Mr. English, with all due respect I do not think this shooting in Texas is a little different. It doesn't matter if he was only targeting a specific person or persons. The fact of the matter is that he fired at multiple people in the restaurant, then proceeded to fire at a police officer in the parking lot, and then continued into to movie theater where he shot and injured an innocent bystander and the reason he wasn't able to do more lethal damage is because an armed security guard was present and was able to stop him. How many people would have been killed if that armed security guard was not present?

apparently not in kentucky. If memory serves me correctly you can buy rpgs, m60s, flamethrowers etc.etc. What a country. I like the fact that you can buy nukes if you got the cash in this world. makes one feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside and eventually burning hot to ashes on the outside. dah

Excellent. Everything you said is correct. Harder to do, tho. But now that this is the focus, let's close the loopholes. If the NRA had any smarts, they would want to be part of the process.

The purpose of cars is to provide transportation.Like many other things,they can be used as weapons.The only purpose of a gun is to kill,and they are the most effective weapons for that reason.
Now,I'm not saying that no one should be allowed to own guns.I grew up in a home that had guns in it.Dad was a hunter when he was young and kept the guns.Few people knew he had them, because he never bragged about it or threatened people with them.Most of the gun nuts who post comments on here and other sites act as if they can't wait for someone to step onto their property uninvited so that they can blow their brains out.

LOL... be careful what you assume, ask the people of Australia; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_buy-back_scheme#In_Australia. Not meant to argue whether Australian Gun Control laws have made gun related crime better or worse, just pointing out that with certain mindsets in control of centralized government the possibility exists that they could "come for them lawfully".

Absolutely not trying to stir up conspiracy theory type stuff so please no accusations to the like, just pointing out that if it happened in Australia it could someday happen here too.

What would be the definition of a "securely stored weapon" be? Assuming a weapon is "securely stored" it would also more than likely not be readily available to a homeowner to use for self-defense if someone broke into their home and therefore rendered useless to the homeowner as an effective means of protecting him/herself and potentially their family.

And if the homeowner were able to retrieve their previously "secured" firearm only to be greeted by an intruder before they could ready the now "unsecured" weapon and the intruder overcame the homeowner and proceeded to take possession of the weapon and go on to commit more crime that same evening with the newly acquired "unsecured" weapon would the homeowner lying unconscious and perhaps tied up be liable for the damages the intruder inflicts with the weapon acquired while it was "unsecured"?

While it may seem like a bit of a stretch and a vastly different scenario than a legal gun owner irresponsibly leaving his handgun on the front seat of his unlocked car, I don't see how the threat of penalty for "insecurely stored weapons" would solve anything. While properly "secured" weapons may have delayed Adam Lanza a couple of weeks ago, I doubt it would have prevented him from carrying out his intentions.

Israel and some European countries require "secure storage". If it's in your personal possession (eg, under your pillow at night) that'd be enough for me.. it'd be your personal responsibility. If you leave it lying around and some kid finds it, or if a burglar finds it in your dresser, or someone takes it from the glove compartment of your car, then you would be on the hook for any resulting damages and medical bills. If Adam Lanza's mother had survived in the Newtown massacre she'd be liable for the entire cost since she evidently left her weapons lying around the house.

Robert,I am by no means an expert.People who shouldn't be allowed to own guns,IMO,the mentally ill,visually impaired,anyone who has ever been convicted of a violent crime.True,if they want a gun,they'll get 1,but let's not make it easy for them.
What I also take issue with is the new breed of gun nuts who think guns solve all problems.I remeber reading a news article a while ago about a resident coming in 1 door and hearning another door slam,and hearing footsteps running down the steps.Several comments were made that
if the resident had a gun,it wouldn't have happened.The srticle never stated whether or not the resident owned a gun.Another story was about a women who was the victim of domestic violence.Her husband still lived with her,but"if she only hsd a gun...."The quote that"an armed society is a polite society"makes me sick to my stomach.Being rude or insulting give someone the reason to shoot the offender?
Want to own a gun or guns?Fine! Just don't threaten people with it or think that all of your problems will go away.

fed up - You wondered why Israel doesnt have this problem. Check out http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/israel and you'll learn things like:
1.Gun deaths/year ~100 (US - 31000).
2.Gun registration: "..the law requires that a record of the acquisition, possession
and transfer of each privately held firearm be retained in an official register?"
3. Gun owner licensing: Must be a veteran or over 27; must "..prove genuine
reason to possess a firearm, for example, self-defence, hunting and sport"; must
pass "..must pass background checks which consider health, mental and
criminal records"; must re-apply every 3 years.
4. Gun storage: ".. written specifications for the lawful safe storage of private
firearms and ammunition by licensed gun owners". Among other things the
stored firearm must be unloaded and the ammunition stored separately (and
securely).
5. Carrying of firearms: Both concealed and visible alllowed (by licensed people)

Then why did the gunman bypass that town's High School? Why did the gunman bypass the Intermediate School too? Maybe because both those schools HAVE armed safety officers, just like my children's High School & Middle School. When you go to a hospital, does it make you feel like a criminal because there are armed security guards there?
An armed guard would have returned fire when he began shooting to gain entry & it could have ended there.
Stop with your uneducated hysteria already. The gunman DID NOT HAVE an automatic weapon.
There are perfectly legitimate uses for semi automatic weapons that 3rd generation apartment dwellers refuse to acknowledge.
Farmers around our country must contend with the 5 million non native razorback hogs that destroy our forests, crops & other wildlife...They EAT anything including native nesting birds & fawns! Highly aggressive dangerous animals that weigh several hundred pounds & normally roam in groups of 20 to 50. It takes several shots to put down just one of them. Recently these feral pigs have begun invading upstate New York.
Our founding fathers would never have removed any law abiding citizen's rights because of the acts of criminals. They also would have applauded the spirit of the 12 year old girl who shot a man through the door of the closet as he turned the doorknob. That home invader had already been charged with kidnapping a mentally disabled girl. You would rather fling her into his arms, how shameful!

Brigid - you are clearly slow witted. This autistic lunatic went to the elementary school and sought out a a particular class. He had a vendetta. It is doubtful that a barney fife from newtown would have been able to take the shells out of his pocket and load his gun to try and do anything before he received his double tap. There is only one way to stop a lunatic and that is to not let try. We need to round up all of these autistic and mentally deranged people and send them to venezuaela where they belong.

@John J. Harris, could you please elaborate on how you know the Newtown shooter picked out that particular classroom and the person with whom he had the vendetta with. I personally don't recall tat being explained in any of the media coverage I have read or watched so I may have just missed it.

Could you also cite for me where in the Constitution or any other State or Local law it allows for the "rounding up autistic and mentally deranged people" and where that line is drawn between people that can be "rounded up" and people that cannot be?

By the way @John J. Harris, the straw man of a dumpy old Barney Fife fumbling through his change pocket to find the six rounds he is going to manually load into his six round revolver while the "unloved-needs-a-hug" psycho is shooting his way through a locked door is a disingenuous and ridiculous notion at best.

As an aside, Adam Lanza did not have an "Automatic assault gun", he had a semi-automatic rifle which has had the manufactured term "assault weapon" attached to it not because of how it operates but because of its physical characteristics, what it looks like. Handguns come in many semi-automatic forms as well and can cause just enough carnage in the hands of someone semi-proficient with them. Just ask the folks that survived the Virginia Tech shooting, that was carried out with two semi-automatic pistols chambered in .22 caliber and 9mm, two weapons that are apparently a far cry from the "assault weapons" the gun control advocates despise so much.

What you fail to understand is that there is indeed a reason "lay people" should have access to a "gun like that" and the reason you fail to understand that is because you fail to grasp the fact that our forefathers are rolling over in their grave because of people like you and your way of thinking. A way of thinking that slowly yet constantly seeks to surrender our freedom for the false notion of "security"

You see the right to bear arms has noting to do with shooting ducks or harvesting deer with a modern sporting rifle (or what you would rather call an assault weapon). It has nothing to do with shooting soda cans in the woods or targets hundreds of yards away in competition. It has to do with the fact that our forefathers understood that evil exists in the hearts of men and when that evil doesn't remain in check from within (conscience), it has to be kept in check from without (in the Old English sense, i.e. by force). That force at times comes from the barrel of a gun. Those same barrels that have afforded you and me the freedom to come on this forum and engage in such a conversation without fear. The same barrels that have afforded you the right to pursue what is in your best interest for the benefit of you and your family instead of our leaders as servants as long as you do so without infringing upon the rights of others.

In the utopian land of fairies and pixie-dust you think the world should be, the world where you and your like-minded cronies get to ban all the firearms YOU want so you can feel better about yourselves for having "done something" there are the rest of us that understand the realities that exist today and heed the warnings that history is so readily available to remind us of.

Now I fully expect the "you're a conspiracy theorist gun nut worried about tyranny and Obama comin' for me guns" but you'd be very wrong in that ad hominem attack. What I know you won't accept and I would assume you will fail to understand is that I want to have the freedom to arm myself with the most effective firearms possible to defend myself and my family in my home knowing tat the person or persons I am defending myself against might just have the same thing in their hands. That gives me a fighting chance before the multiple minute response time of local authorities comes to fruition.

What you will also fail to understand is that while I am not a paranoid conspiracy theorist I do understand that our country is still relatively young, actually in its infancy compared to the rest of the world and a lot of the rest of the world serves as a warning to us. The one entity that has killed more innocent human life throughout history is government, tyrannical governments to be more specific.

While I do not claim tyranny exists within our borders today, nor may it exists in a few decades, or even a few more centuries, history shows us that disarming of a people eventually makes them sitting ducks for governments with no conscience. The realization of that fact by our forefathers is what makes our Founding Document so special. Your mindset either choses to ignore the possibility that such a scenario could play out at some point in this country or it is ignorant of history to realize that it already has in other places around the world.

It is the willingness of people like you who desire the incremental confiscation of freedom in exchange for a false sense of security provided by the very entity that may some day, maybe generations from now, seek to rule The People by force instead of serve them.

@SODawg, care to explain why it is necessary to play the race card as it doesn't add much to the conversation. I don't recall any "evil, black Obama" comments in this thread although I personally am not so naive to think there isn't a fractional percentage of people who think "he's a comin'".

As for the larger point you mention, does armed security make a professional sporting event more or less secure? Does it make Penn Station more or less secure? Does it make a large bank more or less secure? How about an airport?

I am assuming since all those places do have armed security none of your children have ever been to any of them, not an attack on you, just an observation I am assuming I can make.

Just because the President of the NRA calls for Federally funded armed security at every school doesn't mean every member of the NRA or every gun advocate feels the same way. I mention in another post that such decisions are best left to the local communities to decide whether or not to station armed security in their schools and news story after news story I have seen recently indicate about a third of the public schools in the U.S. already do.

While I am sure Louisville is proud you have chosen their "assault weapon" for self- defense, I wonder if the people you are protecting from the gunman coming down your hallway would be wishing you had something else in your hand if that time ever comes, I honestly pray it never does.

@SODawg, thanks for the response. Unfortunately we don't "all know where the misguided hatred comes from" but I am assuming that discussion os for another thread so I too will agree to leave it at that.

I do agree with you that schools are different public venues than the others that I did mention but my broader point is armed security tend to make the venue they are at more secure then if they were not there but yes, a sporting event is indeed different than a building full of classrooms. Despite this, I would argue there are some public schools that are probably more dangerous than MetLife stadium after a Jets loss (sorry Jets fans, you were the ones that attempted to burn down your own stadium back in 89 when getting blown out by the Bills), but I digress.

I think the National Guard at Penn Station would not agree with your assessment while at the same time it shows somewhat a lack of respect on your part regarding what they are capable of and the fact that they are willing to be perhaps the "initial target" in the first place. It may be wrong of me to assume you are trying to be disrespectful so I apologize if I am way off base here.

While the odds of an intruder are indeed low I would prefer to have the odds in my favor should my household wind up with the intruder 1000's of other households didn't have to worry about.

The liability of a weapon comes from someone saying "hey watch this" and then the ensuing "bang", you can't always ban stupidity.

Proof that you don't understand the difference in being threatened and simply going to school to learn.

Hold on... Nobody went after the NRA, the NRA came out and proposed putting weapons in schools. This is one of the most irresponsible ideas you could ever come up with. The NRA and its lobby has one goal and that is to sell guns. The could care less about personal safety.
Are you really saying that the NRA and AAA are the same? One promotes an intentional killing device and the other provides a service to customers that promotes safety.

You and your friends above are the same people that are pro-life for fetuses, but are unwilling to protect the starving and destitute. The Republican party is so warped and delusional it is beyond belief.

BTW- I have saying for years that a box of sharpened pencils can do some serious damage to the human body, but that doesn't mean we should ban them. There is no common sense to that decision. A ban on assault weapons would be common sense decision making.

@SODawg, not everyone agrees with what the NRA comes out with in regard to an appropriate reaction to the Newtown, CT incident but don't fool yourself into thinking that the finger of blame wasn't pointed in their direction after the shooting or after prior mass shootings. Maybe a Google search of NYC Mayor Bloomberg's comments over the years will shed some light on that.

The NRA and it lobbyists actually serve the primary purpose of protecting the 2nd Amendment and yes, a result of that is more guns get sold. Why, because it keeps it legal to buy guns for those that choose to exercise their Constitutional Right to do so.

You portray the gun as an "intentional killing device" promoted by the NRA. In an absolute literal sense you are correct. The purpose of a gun from the time of its invention until now is to incapacitate or kill that which it is pointed at by its handler. To think anything else is naive, guns were not invented to hunt or shoot at targets, unless of course those targets are people.

What creates a "good gun" or a "bad gun" depends on who is holding it, who they are pointing it at, and what the reason is. A gun in the hand of a police officer shooting at a deranged gunman is good, the gun in the hand of the deranged gunman shooting at innocent people is bad, simple concept. The gun in the hand of a woman being threatened by two thugs about to mug/rape her is good, as is the gun in the hands of a father barricaded in his master bedroom with his wife and children hiding in the closet praying the intruders rummaging through his house don't decide to come through the bedroom door.

The NRA actually supports all these "good" folks and wants to ensure that they have the right to hold those "good guns" in their hand and also allow them the right to choose what that firearm is in regard to its form factor, capacity, and stopping power. But that is an unacceptable representation of what the NRA is to you. It is easier to point your finger at them and proclaim they just wanna sell guns under the guise of self-defense but are really promoting killing people. As irrational as that is and unworthy of a response, what do you think self-defense is? It is defending yourself from someone by sopping them from doing what they are doing to you, up to and including killing them.

When an intruder comes in your house and you pull out that Louisville Slugger of yours, what is your intention if he comes at you, at that point in time is it not an intentional killing device? I would prefer holding a device that is a little more efficient at killing.

Finally, explain how an "assault weapons" ban solves anything. Actually make your case as to what it would change, what is an "assault weapon", what categorizes a firearm as an "assault weapon"? And the normal rhetoric won't do. Explain how a ban would hinder criminals and empower law-abiding citizens.

@SODawg, some "common sense" checks on an "assault weapons" ban;

http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcassaul.html

Poke around the FBI site yourself to see how responsible "assault weapons" are for violent crime. In the FBI crime reports an "assault weapon" would fall under the "rifle" category. Interesting how even the FBI doesn't even categorize them as "assault weapons".

http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/crimestats

Guns and magazines don't kill people, PEOPLE kill people! The entire Swiss Army takes their weapons HOME with them. More people die in Switzerland from eating bad cheese than bullets! We need to re-examine our mental health laws and stop worrying so much about privacy before it kills all of us!

@SODawg, you totally misrepresent what was suggested. I don't recall the call for a "gun cart" of sorts where everybody can run to them when the brawl breaks out on the playground. A third of the Nation's Public schools have already "intentionally put guns in the school" and I can't seem to find all the "run for the gun" stories in the news. And how does the risk of "gun play" go up, are the guns in the bin next to the soccer balls and basketballs in gym class or are they handled by a limited number to trained and proficient personnel?

I can safely assume that your intentions are genuine when it comes to the safety of our schools. I can also safely assume that you wanting an "assault weapons" ban is not a result of some evil tyrannical ideology that seeks to disarm The People to allow some master plan of mass oppression to take root and play out.

Having said that, your mindset actually puts more people at risk over time, it tilts the odds away from the law-abiding citizen and in the favor of the criminals, and on a larger scale, it incrementally surrenders The People's individual freedom for the false sense of "security" which can indeed lead to tyranny and history supports that notion. Probably not in the next decade or century, or even a few centuries but it still weakens future generations ability to keep government in check.

@Spooner, I am not following you here, "your continuing attempts to incocate dictatorial directives on the American people". How am I attempting to tell people what to do? My article is an example of the Iowa State Representative wanting to tell other people what to do, or in this case what they can own. I know what the State Representative proposes contradicts the Heller decision which upholds an individual right to own a firearm.

The point of my comment was to exemplify the fact that there are elected officials that openly support legislative action that would allow the confiscation of legally acquired and owned firearms by American Citizens.

Maybe I am misunderstanding what you are accusing me of doing so please clarify the point you are trying to make.

Mr Way- I'm not going to engage in your diatribe pink-pong game like above. Let others draw their own conclusions about your true intents when it comes to confiscation...

My true intents? What the hell are you talking about? I am against confiscation of any kind. As far as "ping pong", I just want to make sure I don't misrepresent the point a you are trying to make. I can't force you to elaborate but coming in here and accusing me of something without substantiating it only detracts from conversation.

I'd like to respectfully ask you to either come right out and say what you want everyone else to figure out about me or refrain from responding to my comments.

My position is clear and simple regarding confiscation, history teaches us that it happens and I am against any type of incremental legislative measures that create the framework for a governing body to "come after our guns" at some point in the near or distant future.

I am 100% behind you if you throw in mentally deranged lunatics and autistics.