Guns don't kill people. People kill people. But it'd be a lot harder to kill or injure 70-some people in a movie theatre with a knife or bat.

How many times does this sort of thing have to happen before people wake the fuck up?

But not with fire or poison gas!

I don't think meaningful gun control is possible in the US.  We have as many guns on the street as people.

As a culture, the US is violent, militaristic, and lacks empathy.  Post cold-war rage and anxiety associated with those huge flaws has turned inward. 

I think it is more about culture, personally. We have had gunfire erupt in both offensive and defensive means here in the neighborhood. I hate to sound like a bumper sticker, but if law abiding folks are told guns are forbidden, criminals usually won't much care about the law.

My wife flipped out when I brought my family shotgun into our house. She doesn't like gun at all and I love to shoot. Go figure.

Exactly, criminals have no problem getting any weapon they want, (*) but civilians who just want to protect themselves legally are penalized with massive restrictions on what they can own and all the bureaucracy involved in determining if they can own at all.

"No intelligent man has any respect for an unjust law. He simply follows the eleventh commandment -- Robert A. Heinlein

(*) I know this for a fact because I've been doing some hood shopping recently.
380  Glock polymer  $750, 45 1911 1K

No questions asked and those are only the ones I actually asked questions about. LOL
Almost anything is available most everywhere. ...Illegally.

Have you seen the double barrel .45 from Arsenal Firearms?

Just please tell me it's not a revolver.

Clip.

Well you might as well expand.

A "double barrel .45" could be firing .410 shot shells! So what is it about?

It can't be more exotic than the  410 Shotshell & .45 colt revolver from Taurus. This is one clean puppy for home defense.

http://www.taurususa.com/gun-selector-results.cfm?series=41

Like most cool things this item is banned in Ca.

A little background.

The Judge Taurus Handgun .45 & 410

I really like this thing as a zombie killer.

I live in a country with very stringent firearms control laws, and guess what, our homicide rates are very low. The last mass shooting here was in 1996, which prompted even more regulation on firearms.

But our homicide rate is not all to do with regulation, there are still plenty of firearms out there. It's as much cultural as regulatory.

*Yawn*

We talk good on guns in between massacres and bad on them when this shit happens especially in an election year. Whatever. This happened without warning and without reason. You can't stop a nutter from getting his hands on weaponry and doing what he wants to do. No law, no regulation, would have prevented this.

Yes, guns are a part of American culture. Evolution will likely change that as soon as we get reasonable people in government. So don't hold your breath.

So the fact that he bought two of the three guns he used in a goddamn fishing store that advertises on national TV doesn't bug anyone? This doesn't seem too easy?

Bass Pro Shop is so much more than a fishing store. They sell hunting, camping, hiking, boating, skiing, and fishing gear. And clothing.

Yeah, sure, that's how it looks from the ads. And they already released a statement saying that all federal requirements were met, so I'm not saying they're at fault here. But what are the federal requirements, anyway?

The Department of Justice maintains a database of every person who has been convicted of a felony, has been diagnosed with a mental illness or defect or has been institutionalized, has a history of firearms violations or is otherwise ineligible to own a firearm. Most places that sell guns have a computer that can instantly access this database. If not, there is a five day waiting period while the background check is done by telephone and someone in the DOJ checks the database. Some state and local regulations may preclude ownership if the person attempting a purchase is in a divorce or custody battle, has a history of domestic violence, etc etc.

Which still does not stop someone from short circuiting, buying a shitload of firepower and doing exactly this, which has been my point all along.

I never watch news, could someone provide a link to this story?

Google colorado dark knight shooting and you won't be able to miss it.

I remember before Timothy McVeigh happened, I never heard of my Waffle House farmer ever complaining about fertlizer regulations, after OKC went boom boom pow, they bitched a lot about it.

On another board someone said that ammo should be made really expensive so that if you were planning a bloodbath you would have to save up for a long time.

It would never work, because if you are already planning a bloodbath then a few rounds are all you need to get all you want, in fact you don't need any at all to get started or even a weapon at first ... if you hit the right place. Take out a couple people then load your truck to the roof with whatever you want.

It would just be seen as more government sponsored gouging of the general consumer by the majority. Ammo is already pretty expensive.

Actually, some famous comedian said it ...
He just repeated it ...

Chris Rock.  And the reason it's funny is because it's ludicrous.  If for no other reason than the fact that you could never regulate rednecks loading their own shells like my dad used to do with a shotgun press when I was a kid.  Also increasing the cost of ammo would just create a huge black market for cheap ammunition from outside US borders.  Think the Mexican drug wars are bad now?  Imagine when they're running guns and ammunition as well in a high-demand market.

But our homicide rate is not all to do with regulation, there are still plenty of firearms out there. It's as much cultural as regulatory.

Also population density.  Don't remember where you're from, but I'm always hearing people talk about how the UK has so much of a lower crime rate than the US.  The UK also has 1/6 the population that the US has.  Most other countries have far less.  Add to that the poverty level in some cities and the exponentially widening gap between the lower and upper classes and you start to see why our crime rate is so high, guns or no.

Stuff like this always brings out the anti-gun groups screaming that this never would have happened if guns were banned etc etc and quoting firearm death statistics.

In 2011 there were around 9,000 gun-related homicides  maybe 10,000 or so deaths altogether, including accidents and suicides.  And that figure is taken from a website advocating gun-control.

Also there were around 36,000 vehicle-related deaths, 100,000 alcohol-related, and five million deaths caused by smoking.  Hell, 16,000 cheerleaders were put in the hospital from athletic mishaps.

Number of deaths for leading causes of death:
Heart disease: 599,413
Cancer: 567,628
Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 137,353
Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 128,842
Accidents (unintentional injuries): 118,021
Alzheimer's disease: 79,003
Diabetes: 68,705
Influenza and Pneumonia: 53,692
Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 48,935
Intentional self-harm (suicide): 36,909

Guns don't even rank in the top ten.  It's hysteria.  People wanting to feel that they're doing something important after seeing something sad on TV.  Yeah, the Batmang massacree was horrible, and probably preventable somehow or other, but you can't go through swinging blindly with the banhammer based on one event involving a few dozen people.  You may call that thinking callous, I call it lucid.  Thiough yeah, I have to admit I'm not always the most lucid person in the room, but at least I try.

All that said, I still ride the fence on the gun issue, like I have for years now.  Both sides are so mired down in bullshit that you can't get a clear view of anything close to the subject, so people become reactionary, on both sides.  So what I do is just try to look at it from a bare perspective. 

The majority of firearms are made outside of the US.  Sure, we're probably one of the largest buyers, but the supply comes from outside US borders, and so long as there is demand, legal or otherwise, there will be supply.  Banning guns would require the cooperation of every nation in the world promising to put a halt to gun production, which would be an impossibility.  Guns can't be banned until there isn't a use for guns any longer.  Until the demand is gone.  Personally, I don't think that will ever happen.  But I also don't think that we'll exist for much longer than maybe another 200-years at most, just because of the exponential progression of technology.  But that's another thing altogether.

Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 48,935

I'll be one of those, eventually! Huzzah!

Also population density.  Don't remember where you're from, but I'm always hearing people talk about how the UK has so much of a lower crime rate than the US.  The UK also has 1/6 the population that the US has.  Most other countries have far less.  Add to that the poverty level in some cities and the exponentially widening gap between the lower and upper classes and you start to see why our crime rate is so high, guns or no.

On a population density basis:
The US has a relatively low overall population density.  London has a population density around 13,500 per square mile whereas Detroit has a population density of around 5,000 per square mile.  Population density has very little to do with it. 

Crime statistics, in general, are reported normalized by number of people.  For instance, Baltimore had a murder rate of 31.3 per 100,000 (with 100,000 being the normal # of people used in crime statistics).  Total murders / actual population * 100,000 = murders per 100,000 people.  That enables comparisons between areas with disparate populations. 

That said, your point about poverty and the wealth gap is one of the big drivers of crime both in the US and in general.   

Here's another opinion.


Colorado Batman shooting shows obvious signs of being staged
http://www.naturalnews.com/036536_james_holmes_shooting_false_flag.html

I wouldn't dismiss it to quickly.

If for no other reason than the fact that you could never regulate rednecks loading their own shells like my dad used to do with a shotgun press when I was a kid.

I brought the reloading issue up as well. Not only would many more people start reloading their own brass, but it would require many more people to keep a store of gunpowder. Having so much powder on hand in the general public would make construction of pipe bombs and IED's much easier.

Here's another opinion.


Colorado Batman shooting shows obvious signs of being staged
http://www.naturalnews.com/036536_james_holmes_shooting_false_flag.html

I wouldn't dismiss it to quickly.

I would. naturalnews has absolutely no credibility whatsoever.

I forgot to add in that long rant that what I think should happen is a more extended version of the Brady Bill.  The process of getting a driver's license so you can drive a damn car is more rigorous than purchasing a gun.  I think in order to own a gun you should have to have a license just like anything else dangerous in the world. Make someone take classes for a few weeks, pass a test or two proving that you know how to use the damn thing, and in the process prove that you're not a goddamn whacko that's gonna shoot up the local Denny's because green Lantern told you to do it in a dream.

I would do anything for Green Lantern.