Bravo !!! and the doff of my hat. What an elegant and eloquent piece.

Excellent post.

The shootings during the eighties, and the requisite media frenzy that ensued, served to shape public opinion in the direction of gun control.

Thankfully, public opinion has swayed in the opposite direction in the interim, despite more intense coverage and increased tragedies.

Despite the best efforts of the media, even former anti-gun people are finally coming to realize that gun control favors the criminal while making victims of law-abiding citizens.

One thing you didn't mention, though, is the fact that all of these shooters were on mind-altering psychotropic drugs, or had stopped taking them previous to the rampage.

Perhaps we should take a closer look at the effects of the widespread use of these prescription drugs and the manner in which they are prescribed.

To begin with, our media is reporting these events differently these days. In the Virginia shootings, for example, the gunman was stopped by a student with a concealed carry license (who had to run to his vehicle to get his firearm). This fact was reported in only a handful of the several hundred news stories about the shooting. In addition to putting the issue of gun ownership in perspective, this fact might well have given pause to a few of this gunman's successors.

You're right -- I never heard that. BUT it's also true that most of these shooters end up committing suicide or being killed by SWAT teams. So I don't know how much pause the prospect of death might have given them.

Our leaders react with glee to these shooting events, because it enables them to place ever tightening controls on gun ownership and carry

Uh... anytime soon????

You see, the Second Amendment was not written to protect the right to self defense. It was written to protect the right to resist tyranny by force, if that becomes a necessary last resort.

Yep, I've heard that too -- but what's a "last resort"?? I've talked to hundreds of American gun owners who say that one role of their guns is to protect themselves and their property from the US government, should it get out of control. Well, it seems to me that it's WAAAYYY out of control. Where are these gun owners? Why aren't they doing their jobs?

Frankly, I never understood how someone was going to hold off the power of the US govt. with a 9 mm.

When the firearm was invented, that began to change. You can learn to shoot effectively in a day. You can learn to shoot exceptionally in a month. Maintaining your skills requires only occasional practice, and it requires almost no muscle at all to pull a trigger. This left time for men and women alike to think, and to articulate ideas that even make it unnecessary for us to go to war at all. It was a huge turning point in civilization.

Sweet attempt at reasoning, but actually we've had our biggest wars subsequent to the development of the gun and even more powerful weapons. And it serves to remember too that guns have given some civilizations an extreme advantage over others.

More importantly, it completely leveled the playing field. There is a humorous saying, "God did not create man equal - Sam Colt did." It's funny indeed. It's also very true.

Well, if you believe that, then you must also believe that allowing Iran and other countries to develop nuclear weapons is the path to peace.

They say that "guns don't kill people -- people kill people" but we need to at least be consistent. If that's true, then it's also true that "nuclear weapons don't kill people -- people kill people"??

More importantly, it completely leveled the playing field. There is a humorous saying, "God did not create man equal - Sam Colt did." It's funny indeed. It's also very true.

Actually, it didn't level the playing field. It put an accelerated power into the hands of those who were willing and able to purchase guns. There was a point in our history when Indians weren't permitted to legally obtain firearms -- why do you suppose that was?

Today, we're trying to control who in the world has access to the same weapons technology that we do. And supposedly that's because we don't trust "some people" to use that technology appropriately -- but whatever would make anyone think that they trust us to use it appropriately.

There really is only one country in the world that has used nuclear weapons against a civilian population. That's us. And now we've embarked on the type of invasion and occupation committed by other countries with imperialist ambitions. Why should anyone trust us?

If gun control is such a bad thing, then why did the US government try to force Iraqis to give up their guns after the occupation? According to you, shouldn't it be a good thing that honest Iraqis (...or at least Iraqis who haven't as yet proven to be "insurgents") are armed?

You no longer have to be a professional soldier to defend your life and your freedom. You have the time and leisure for other civilized pursuits, while still maintaining the necessary ability to protect yourself and your family. You have an easy and relatively rapid way to obtain meat, should civilization completely fall apart. You are no longer at constant risk from any six foot plus gorilla who wants what you have earned.

The funny thing is that, while I've heard quite a few stories of some misfit using legally purchased guns to take innocent lives and terrorize people over the past few years -- and a few stories of legally bought guns being involved in family accidents -- I don't recall that many stories in which people defended their lives and homes and families using guns. Are you suggesting that MSM squashes such stories?

Because I used to live in the Detroit area when I was a kid. People there were big-time into their guns -- I even owned a couple -- and while I remember many tragic incidents of kids getting ahold of guns and shooting themselves or their friends, and of family members, lovers, neighbours, friends, enemies, etc. shooting each other, I can't recall a single incident in which a gun prevented a crime or a tragedy.

A firearm is a tool, like any other tool. A screwdriver can kill, too - more slowly and horribly than a well used firearm - but you don't hear our leaders trying to ban them.

Nope, that's true. You don't. But then, the primary purpose of screwdrivers isn't to kill. You can kill someone with your iron skillet if you're so inclined, or with your silk stocking. The primary purpose of guns, though, is to kill living creatures.

To kill someone with a screwdriver, you'd have to get in pretty close to them. No opportunities for the kind of false bravado that a gun at 50 paces would provide. Killing someone with a screwdriver would requite a very different level of commitment and involvement than shooting someone from a distance. And the victim would have a much better chance at fighting back, injuring you, even taking the screwdriver from you.

In your own words, it's more of a level playing field.

Firearms sound like exceptional tools to me. I can't figure out why we keep apologizing for owning and carrying them.

Perhaps because your freedom to have one creates circumstances that result in so much misery and inhumanity.

I have also been thinking about this lately -- if our founding fathers could have visited our time and seen the technology of the weapons they were writing into the Constitution and the cultural role they would come to play, would they have still entrenched gun rights in the Second Ammendment? Frankly, based on their other decisions, I believe they would have erred on the side of caution. But guns were very different back then -- sighting, firing mechanisms and ammo were much less advanced, making guns more difficult to use effectively (requiring more thought and intent), and we didn't have the "I have a gun so that makes me better than you" mentality of the gangsta rap videos that we have today. I don't really think the founding fathers had to deal with students who went to campuses and massacred people senselessly. If they'd had to take such problems into consideration, they might have made very different choices -- and while I don't think we can/should ban guns altogether, it's obvious that we need some more effective gun controls.

The most hiliarious suggestion of all is that we all carry guns so we can settle our disputes and problems in shootouts. No thanks!!

Some folks just don't get it. It's not about guns... it's not necessarily about self-defense. It's about Liberty... being sure that everyman has a chance... something worth self sacrifice. "Self" preservation means more than having the gov't take care of you. And, yes, it's probably true that feeling their throats collapse between your fingers is much more emotionally satisfying than merely shooting the bastards.

One other thing... statistics show that communities with concealed carry laws have MUCH LESS violent crime.

A complete and total ban on guns would not prevent a single shooting of this nature...ever.
Illegal guns would be just as available as illegal drugs and worse yet, you wouldn't have to even buy one, just borrow it for a while.

Treating the symptoms never works as well as treating the cause, and ultimately we also have to accept that no matter what is decided as a solution, there will NEVER EVER be a guarantee of 100 percent complete safety and security.
There never has been in fifty thousand years of civilization.

I agree that gaining retail access to a firearm should be a
controlled process in which the suitability of the product should be matched to the buyer, like any potentially dangerous product. Drivers are required to take training courses in order to receive permission to operate a motor vehicle, radio transceiving equipment owners must be trained to understand the rules and regulations of the airwaves in order to prevent them from jeopardizing essential communications networks, and explosives users must be certified and trained in the proper use of their products and equipment as well.

The same can be done on some level with relation to firearms, and it can even be done with a level of anonymity or privacy.

But a wholesale restriction on the ownership of firearms it the first step to disarming society and is completely unacceptable and most or all groups that wish to engineer such restrictions have plainly and openly stated that a total ban on ALL firearm ownership by law abiding citizens IS in fact their ultimate goal and therefore we are at an impasse.

For this reason I am solidly, firmly and irrevocably on the side of the gun owners, not because I am satisfied with the way things are now, but because I do not trust gun control advocacy groups any farther than I can spit, and I never will.

They say that "guns don't kill people -- people kill people" but we need to at least be consistent. If that's true, then it's also true that "nuclear weapons don't kill people -- people kill people"??

What you said is correct. Like guns nuclear weapons require a person to turn a key to fire the weapon. They do not launch on their own. In fact 2 people are required to launch a nuclear weapon. I am a Nuclear Weapons Specialist so I know this for a fact, not just something I heard.

You're wasteing goode byytes, Dennnnis. Sorry, my damn keabored went haywar. Misspelling SOB.

I wonder what "civilized nation" is she referring to?

Germany? Host nation to the Holocaust?

France? Race riots and formerly occupied France?

Russia? Host nation to Stalin’s Purges?

She has had one close call in her life, and was lucky because the person who kicked in her door was probably drunk and not intending real harm, and a sharp tongued roommate got them out of it.

Canada has it’s own problems, spoken as someone who lived there for two years. If a criminal can’t get a gun (unlikely if they’re in a big city), they will use a knife or other tool. She is lucky to live out in the country, where crime is less and the lack of population is her protection. Perhaps if she lived in downtown Toronto or Montreal she would have a different viewpoint of the “peaceful” culture she lives in.

In the Canadian city I lived in, if the police didn’t like you, they could beat you and hold you for 48 hours or so, and you had little legal recourse. What a safe society that is. Law enforcement through police brutality.

That said, it's still much better than most big cities in the United States, although I bet living in the country there is probably not all that different than living in the country here, although with more moose. History repeats itself - our government is close to collapse, and our culture is rotten with corruption and crime.

As our neighbor, Canada will have to vigilant or they will suffer our fate soon enough.