Another day, another shooting in the US

[DrTrouserPlank]

If every American had a gun the idiot that started firing would have been shot to bits before getting to kids no2 and no3. So I vote that every American be given a free gun from the government just so this atrocity never happens again.

Loads of Americans have got guns and it doesn't make the slightest bit of difference. The threat of retaliation is already there but the problem is that it's not a threat to someone who is intent on mutual destruction. When someone just pulls out 2 handguns and sprays indiscriminately into a crowd in a public place you've got 10-20 people dead before anybody has even worked out what is going on and who is doing the shooting. Even if someone does shoot him the damage is already done.

[neorichieb1971]

Yeah, but I meant all US citizens having guns at the ready.

Lets work on the basis that 99% of Americans are good people (which they are). If they all had guns they could shoot down that 1% in no time at all. Long before the kind of damage we are talking here.

It would become the wild west again, but it seems thats what they want.

[hail good sir]

so

[KAI]

Bulletproof backpack sales spike after Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown
Or you can send your kids to schools wearing medieval armors.

[DrTrouserPlank]

Maybe you should just have the right to shoot anyone you don't like the look of pre-emptively in case they turn out to be a potential mass murderer?

Yes your honour, I did shoot the defendent

Why did you do that?

He looked like a bit of a dicksplash, and I didn't like his T-shirt.... also he gave me a funny look as though he wanted to bum me.

Well that's quite understandable. You've done this country a great service Sir. Even though the man you shot turned out the be a family man with 3 children, an avid church-goer and who on weekends worked with the homeless we can never be sure just how perilously close he was to going postal. You Sir may have saved a great many lives today.

[Ed Oscuro]

Can we do without the obvious strawmanning?

We don't tell the police they can preemptively shoot people, but they sometimes do it anyway. We all agree that shows a failure in personal responsibility or training.

People who have guns should be held to a high standard of training and preparedness.

However, it's not clear that the high proportion of gun ownership, along with the failure of interception in cases like this, shows that it can't work - many of these bad guys have been going to places where there are laws prohibiting the taking of firearms in. So the only people who are likely to be there with a weapon are people with special status (police) or criminals who disregard the law.

To be clear I don't want a law to be passed that allows gun owners to carry (concealed or open makes no difference) over the objections of a group, i.e. a church or a school, but at the same time those groups seem to take on some responsibility for what happens if they end up without a feasible plan for protecting anybody who is there. Schools have been relatively good about this, with at least one armed officer at many. I fear that in truth that would just make the officer the first target for somebody with bad intentions but it is better than nothing, and I also agree that people have a right to exclude firearms from their places, even those held by friendly owners.

[DrTrouserPlank]

Can we do without the obvious strawmanning?

We don't tell the police they can preemptively shoot people, but they sometimes do it anyway. We all agree that shows a failure in personal responsibility or training.

People who have guns should be held to a high standard of training and preparedness.

However, it's not clear that the high proportion of gun ownership, along with the failure of interception in cases like this, shows that it can't work - many of these bad guys have been going to places where there are laws prohibiting the taking of firearms in. So the only people who are likely to be there with a weapon are people with special status (police) or criminals who disregard the law.

To be clear I don't want a law to be passed that allows gun owners to carry (concealed or open makes no difference) over the objections of a group, i.e. a church or a school, but at the same time those groups seem to take on some responsibility for what happens if they end up without a feasible plan for protecting anybody who is there. Schools have been relatively good about this, with at least one armed officer at many. I fear that in truth that would just make the officer the first target for somebody with bad intentions but it is better than nothing, and I also agree that people have a right to exclude firearms from their places, even those held by friendly owners.

In the states they aren't though. Once you get your gun you can act like an utter dick with it. Go on youTube and look at some of the antics of people who (I am sure) are legally entitled to have the weapons they are treating as toys.

You say

many of these bad guys have been going to places where there are laws prohibiting the taking of firearms in

So they've been breaking the law. Well yes they have, but they've also decided to carry on breaking the law when they start murdering people with firearms that are either legally owned by them, or someone else. The argument from the pro gun side is that "you can't stop people breaking the law, so we need to be able to protect ourselves". This is true in part. You can make laws and you set punishments for transgressions as a deterrent, but ultimately though you can't stop people doing what they want to do. What you can do however (idealistically) is limit the extent to which their lawbreaking impacts on others, and not providing them with a convenient murder device is one way in which that can be done.

In a situation where I think everyone accepts that you can't account for and control the actions of every single person and stop them from doing bad things and things they aren't supposed to do, you have to find ways to limit the damage that their actions have.

This is all incredibly hypothetical though, and any action taken by politicians will amount to pretty much nothing. Certainly in terms of stopping this happening again. America needs to adopt a massive change in it's culture, and whilst i don't propose this would ever be easy or popular among certain circles it is the only way that this can be prevented from happening again.

Leaders are elected to lead and make decisions in the best interest of their people; even if they may not be particularly popular in the short term.

[hail good sir]

route

[robivy64]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRJ38y4Jn6k

[rapoon]

So the proposition being thrown around is to ban "assault" weapons which is a pretty meaningless term so one assumes that this will be clarified by a list of specific guns that won't be sold anymore. I take it this is because the dicksplash who went on a rampage was reported to have an assault rifle in the boot of his car, although presumably this wasn't the gun he killed people with. I'm informed that the guns used were a glock and a sig sauer, both of which I assume are semi-automatic handguns.

I'm not a gun expert and as far as I'm concerned there are broadly 2 types of guns. Those where you have to click the trigger each time you want to murder someone, and those where you hold the trigger down and people don't stop dying until you release the trigger. If automatic firearms are supposedly controlled (although one has to wonder what possible reason anyone could have for a automatic weapon) then what is banning "assault" weapons going to have? Evidently you can empty the clip of an semi-automatic handgun pretty quick, and these seem to have been the culprits in this case.

The Bushmaster AR-15 (semi-automatic assault rifle) was the primary weapon used, not the Glock, not the Sig. It would be banned if the assault rifle ban were reinstated as would 30+ round clips and 100+ round drums. Fully automatic weapons are limited to military personal and it's been that way since the 30's. That doesn't stop people from modifying their firearms to become fully automatic.

as far as the "hunting argument" is concerned. dickheads need 30 round clips in case they miss 29 times? the NRA championed reclassifying *some* assault weapons as hunting rifles in the mid 90's. a good example is the mid 90's norinco ak-47 w/ a thumbhole stock. because it had the thumbhole stock, it could be imported into the country, regardless of it's 2x 30 round clips. no one fucking hunts with an ar-15 or ak-47.....

[Ed Oscuro]

no one fucking hunts with an ar-15 or ak-47.....

Totally wrong.

Home defense also.

[Ed Oscuro]

In the states they aren't though. Once you get your gun you can act like an utter dick with it. Go on youTube and look at some of the antics of people who (I am sure) are legally entitled to have the weapons they are treating as toys.

I think we can probably continue the argument here instead of where you wanted to take it: Let's not pretend as if all firearms proponents are thrilled with that kind of behavior. The top gun blog "The Truth About Guns," for example, is very critical of many gun owners. While most of the people there (including the writers) would say something like the responsibility should be personal, not mandated by draconian laws, everybody there does agree that there is a problem with people being stupid.

But Tex Grubner shooting himself in the leg for the benefit of YouTUbe didn't lead to 25 people being massacred in a school.

Any kind of catch-all legislation that takes a bit of this (crime problems in a city), a bit of that ("grabass" antics on YouTube), and a sprinkle of something else (arguments about what people supposedly "need") is likely to be as unfocused as the myopic vision that leads people to think that all these disparate pictures point to one single fix. In reality, you may have legislative solutions for some of the problems, but not all of them; two different issues might share a common cause or even solution, but not likely all of them.

The seemingly commonplace nature of these massacres belies the fact that we are talking about a group of perps whose numbers are so small as to be statistically unknowable ahead of time. This country has already seen throughout the last decade that completely unrestrained spending for narrowly-focused security goals can dent problems, at the probable cost of being able to spend on things that impact the individual to a much greater extent throughout the nation, and this narrowly-focused fight against one specific problem makes people blind to these other issues.

As long as everybody (on both sides of the issue) demands that we talk about everything as if it's part of one monolithic freedom-security dichotomy, we're going to keep seeing the important distinctions buried and the potential for clarity in the law undermined. A complete and indiscriminate guns ban might please anti-firearms proponents but it isn't likely to be the best solution.

[rapoon]

no one fucking hunts with an ar-15 or ak-47.....

Totally wrong.

Home defense also.

here we go:

retarded hunters use an ar-15 or ak-47.....

.223 and 7.62 are terrible choices for hunting unless its a squirrel or a water bottle.

lol, home defense.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

no one fucking hunts with an ar-15 or ak-47.....

Totally wrong.

Home defense also.

No competent hunter goes hunting game with a semi-automatic assault rifle that has a 30 round clip unless they're a serious gun nut or simply nuts.

Reminds me of the "if only the teachers had guns!" argument. Aside from the problems of having teachers assuming they're going to get gunned down (or get their firearms stolen by kids), there's no guarantee that someone with a pistol would've successfully taken out a guy with an assault rifle.

[undamned]

no one fucking hunts with an ar-15 or ak-47.....

With how prolific the AK-47 is, I'm pretty sure that gun is used for shaving one's beard somewhere.

Home defense also.

Not recommended. Chances of poking a hole through a wall and killing your family are much more likely than with a shotgun (recommended).
-ud

[trap15]

With how prolific the AK-47 is, I'm pretty sure that gun is used for shaving one's beard somewhere.

I can guarantee you that some Russian somewhere actually does this

[Damocles]

No competent hunter goes hunting game with a semi-automatic assault rifle that has a 30 round clip unless they're a serious gun nut or simply nuts.

retarded hunters use an ar-15 or ak-47.....

.223 and 7.62 are terrible choices for hunting unless its a squirrel or a water bottle.

lol, home defense.

Actually, they do all the time. Most makers have Varminter or equivalent models that are designed specifically for...well...varmints. We sell a few each year, with most being used for coyotes or prairie dogs. The .308 versions are also (obviously) deer/antelope legal. A thirty round magazine wouldn't be totally absurd (althouth it would be overkill) for varminting, as most hunt either off-hand or from a bipod, which (probably) would allow the magazine to clear the ground/table/whatever (depending on the bipod). 20-round magazines are the popular choice as they are compact and still provide ample ammunition. AR-style rifles are generally accurate enough for most hunters. Few Americans actually hunt with an AK-47 as they're not exactly known for their accuracy. A scope on an AK makes about as much sense as...well...not much. AKs are deer legal, but there's no point for the most part.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I personally have an AR under the bed, which makes sense as we actually *gasp* like the AR platform. Considering the distance between our house and the gunshop, a shotgun wouldn't cut it. I also occasionally hunt deer with an Armscorp M1A. Once again, because I like the platform.

I don't care to discuss the politics of the issue online, so have at it.

YMMV. I live in Kansas, other State hunting laws may vary, all that jazz.

[rapoon]

No competent hunter goes hunting game with a semi-automatic assault rifle that has a 30 round clip unless they're a serious gun nut or simply nuts.

retarded hunters use an ar-15 or ak-47.....

.223 and 7.62 are terrible choices for hunting unless its a squirrel or a water bottle.

lol, home defense.

Actually, they do all the time. Most makers have Varminter or equivalent models that are designed specifically for...well...varmints. We sell a few each year, with most being used for coyotes or prairie dogs. The .308 versions are also (obviously) deer/antelope legal. A thirty round magazine wouldn't be totally absurd (althouth it would be overkill) for varminting, as most hunt either off-hand or from a bipod, which (probably) would allow the magazine to clear the ground/table/whatever (depending on the bipod). 20-round magazines are the popular choice as they are compact and still provide ample ammunition. AR-style rifles are generally accurate enough for most hunters. Few Americans actually hunt with an AK-47 as they're not exactly known for their accuracy. A scope on an AK makes about as much sense as...well...not much. AKs are deer legal, but there's no point for the most part.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I personally have an AR under the bed, which makes sense as we actually *gasp* like the AR platform. Considering the distance between our house and the gunshop, a shotgun wouldn't cut it. I also occasionally hunt deer with an Armscorp M1A. Once again, because I like the platform.

I don't care to discuss the politics of the issue online, so have at it.

YMMV. I live in Kansas, other State hunting laws may vary, all that jazz.

When I talking about "hunting" I'm referring to a med - large game, not varmints. yes, an AR is fine for varmint hunting. so is any any .22 LR. We can start debating the rounds (the vast majority are 5.56/.223 as I'm sure you're aware) etc, and yea, a AR-15 w/ a .308 or .458 upper will drop a med - large animal but stomping around a lease with an AR and banana clip is often seen as unsportsmanlike (as are many small caliber rounds that cause the animal unnecessary suffering). I know plenty of leases in TX that will gladly tell someone w/ an AR to fuck off as using any assault rifle is prohibited. There's a reason the vast majority of hunting rifles are bolt action, single shot. The .223 is a shit round (ricochet off branches, little stopping power) (7.56 isn't much better) and unless it's a very precise shot or multiple rounds are fired, the animal will run away, experience a horrible death and may not be found. I have never hunted. I do not hunt. I will never hunt. But I know plenty of hunters and none of them have ever used an assault rifle for hunting but I'm aware that some but few hunters do.

[neorichieb1971]

Americans are doing themselves no favors broadcasting to the world that kids are getting mowed down and then doing nothing about it.

It makes you look so out of touch with modern society. And crazy.

If you Americans think our arguments are wrong, just look at it this way... We want the next round of kids in someones sights to survive the next time. We don't want to hear of the next Batman movie having its viewers shot to death either.

Perhaps all public places should have signs that read "Beware of guns". Because at least that would remind yourselves every single day what you actually voted for. A society terrorized by a thought or memory.

When I went to live in America, my thought going there was this "If I ever encounter a gun crime scenario that affected me I would leave immediately". None happened.

[Ed Oscuro]

no one fucking hunts with an ar-15 or ak-47.....

Totally wrong.

Home defense also.

here we go:

retarded hunters use an ar-15 or ak-47.....

.223 and 7.62 are terrible choices for hunting unless its a squirrel or a water bottle.

lol, home defense.

Funny you should say that, as the .223 and 7.62 have been mainstays of intermediate-range engagement weapons (i.e., close quarters, especially in the .223) for years.
For hunting: Upper receiver out, get SOCOM 458 or Beowulf upper in there, done. Now you're sportsmanlike and not carrying more than 10 rounds!

As you were very close to realizing, the 5.56x45mm started out as a sporting cartridge, the .223 Remington.
Being sportsmanlike is a good point, if another off-topic red herring to some extent. I enjoy shooting all the animals I can find...but only with a camera. I don't like the killing. It boggles the mind to think (and it is one of my recurrent thoughts) that people with firearms actually managed to destroy entire species of birds and other animals within a relatively short span of time. That is an area clearly benefiting from regulatory laws restricting what can be shot and with what it can be shot, as well as educational efforts instilling the importance of being a thoughtful sportsman as well as a sense of the traditional hunter's conservationism (which does seem to have been dimmed somewhat in the years since Silent Spring). You'll notice, of course, that a law banning the use of certain rounds for hunting is all that's needed in this case.

On the topic of home defense, I'm sure there's a lot that can be done with the rifle. One downside to pistols and shotguns is that they are loud to the point where you're likely to damage your hearing. A rifle, on the other hand, is one of the better host platforms for suppressors and the AR-15 style rifle is no different. I am not sure about low-penetration rounds, but there are quieter and slower-moving projectiles, like the .300 Blackout.

Submachine guns for home defense is probably a bad idea. SMGs are more useful for professionals but recently many have become disenchanted with their performance, and they're presumably wide-awake when they use them. For that weapon, the only real benefits are increased stability, capacity, and accuracy over a pistol, and (the only selling point for professionals) more mobility and perhaps concealability than a rifle. One can get pretty close with a short-barreled rifle, though, and you won't be stuck with pistol bullets that perform even worse than rifle rounds (or, perhaps, some of the more modern special-purpose bottlenecked rounds like the FN-P90's) in regards to bouncing off things and generally doing fuck all besides causing the bad guy to bleed a bit if you don't hit them in exactly the right spot. If you are concerned about hitting family and friends, then get a powerful pistol cartridge at least (10mm or possibly .357, and up) in a carbine style weapon, instead of a round whose only incapacitating factor is slow bleeding over time, short of a lucky shot that destroys a vital bodily function.

The shotgun is more lethal than pistols, which may be good or bad depending on what you aim to do. Most would say that's a good thing, but at least one ER doc has opined that if more people were shot with rifles and shotguns, there'd be less for them to do.

It's interesting to note that Fairbairn & Sykes, the famous former heads of the British police in the Shanghai Concession during the '20s, advise the lawfully minded homeowner considering a self-defense firearm to get a shotgun, and the reason they give is that its operation is likely to be familiar. Fast forward to today, and discussions about suitability aside (like I said, one can find almost anything for the AR-15 platform, including lower-power and frangible rounds also, I'm sure), the question of familiarity is still important. The veteran who has drilled on the use of an AR-15-like rifle will surely grasp a shotgun's use quickly, but why make things harder? Any time spent thinking during a conflict should be spent on looking for peaceful resolutions and identifying the target. If a person has less than perfect familiarity with the weapon at their disposal, that can backfire spectacularly. Of course I'm not extending the range of suitable weapons to anything a person is intimately familiar with - sorry, Apache pilots and tankers, and SAW gunners too. A rifle seems like enough power for many situations - "more than enough" while not "possibly too little" or "more than needed or safe to use" (the mission is to get the job done, not shoot for elegance; "too much" can be misleading, in the same way as "if he was more accurate he would have shot the guns out of their hands").

Perhaps all public places should have signs that read "Beware of guns". Because at least that would remind yourselves every single day what you actually voted for. A society terrorized by a thought or memory.

How would that be any less realistic or harmful than the druglike stupor the "gun free zone" signs are supposed to endorse? They're gun free until somebody decides to break with the tradition, but nobody will be the wiser until it's too late. At least with a sign saying "beware of firearms" you'd be reminded that yes, Richie, there isn't a Santa Claus, and it is a dangerous world sometimes. Yet in their next breath people will condemn "unnecessary" warning labels for making people think too little - if that was really going on, we wouldn't have any accidents, would we?

Congratulations on keeping a safety-oriented mindset with eyes-wide on your trip to the US. For most people (including people who have guns) the best response to a dangerous situation is to get out of it. Many people don't remember this, including (apparently) that patron saint of many firearms defenders, George Zimmer, and ultimately people should be able to present a reasonable defense of their actions as contributing to peace and order, rather than needlessly endangering themselves or others.

[O. Van Bruce]

how come this has become a hunting and gun otakus thread? if you seriously want to vent your gun love at least do it outside of a thread that's mourning the death of 20 kids using said guns.

your attitude is simply incredible. it takes the 'yeah, whatever' stance to a new level.

[MX7]

how come this has become a hunting and gun otakus thread? if you seriously want to vent your gun love at least do it outside of a thread that's mourning the death of 20 kids using said guns. 

your attitude is simply incredible. it takes the 'yeah, whatever' stance to a new level.

Indeed, I'm aghast. This thread really is in the worst possible taste. I would say you guys should be ashamed of yourselves, but it's quite clear that you have problems with empathy.

There is ideological no justification for killing someone, even in self defence. A gun's sole utility, beyond the dubious notion of posturing, is to kill humans and animals. There is no justification for anyone owning a gun. If you decide that the need to protect your family involves potentially killing somebody then you should not have a family, much less a firearm. If you believe that people are out to get you and you must protect yourself, you're either mentally unhinged and therefore should not own a gun, or if someone IS trying to kill you, you should get to the police as quickly as possible. 

There's a culture around guns? Ha! A culture around a lump of metal that kills people might have been understandable a few hundred years ago, but it has no place now. I can understand the enjoyment of shooting things, but just go play Time Crisis instead. 

I get no one is going to change their mind any time soon. But if people are going to spout gun-nut bullshit, at least have the sense of decency not to do it in a thread discussing the deaths of 20 children, yeah? 

[Jon]

a thread that's mourning the death of 20 kids using said guns.

Oh please. You've done no mourning whatsoever. Looking at your posts in this thread and all I see is you looking down your nose and casting righteous judgment. You are full of shit.

[hail good sir]

wrong

[Ed Oscuro]

I would like to just take a moment to register my dissatisfaction with the low level of the public debate after hearing a few snippets of the NRA's official response to this event on the radio.

Their plan, far from being a concession to the gun control lobby, is that we need to have armed guards (with some kind of professional background, i.e. retired police, National Guard, other armed forces) in every school, and they are willing to fund it at "whatever level" is necessary, reportedly.

I am wondering if this isn't a tactic to win the battle that loses the greater war. From the standpoint of how crappy the debate is, it probably looked like a reasonable thing to do and was clearly an attempt to make a proposal that would point out that we really need some better protections for schools, while deflecting criticism against legally-minded gun owners.

Unfortunately, what they have proposed is to essentially do away with a freedom, and the plan is a "one-size-fits-all" solution of the type I have been criticizing!

We can say what we like about the wisdom of not having police around in places that might be targeted. But I think that is a decision to be made at the community level. If a community has already decided that they want a gun free zone, then we have to ask whether this really would respect that intention. I think that probably many people would be OK so long as the people providing security had been vetted by a professional agency and were accountable, but the basic form of the argument - fighting fire with fire - would require that people give up the freedom to try to maintain a gun-free zone, if they wanted. While it is true that this is not a clearly Constitutionally enshrined right like the Second Amendment, it does seem that this right to choose the rules of one's society would be violated if this Model Program were adopted nationwide.

It looks as if the NRA chooses to trade away some other peoples' rights to preserve their own, but there should be no such need. I have already said that if people decide not to have any protection for their kids at school that they ultimately shoulder some of the responsibility for not giving those kids the resources to overcome the situation. But from my current perspective I can't see into every school and public place, and determine what is best for them.

It is interesting also that they only went as far as schools - the problem becomes even clearer if you remember the place where the previous attack happened, in Aurora, Colorado, at a movie theater. The NRA's plan simply won't do anything there, but their plan suggests you have armed guards there. That's an even more blatant attempt to disregard the rights of others to set the "house rules" for attendance. I most certainly have a conventional right to not allow somebody into my home if they are doing something I do not like, and that might include carrying a firearm.

The NRA's proposal therefore will not satisfy all the situations, or if it does, it will attempt to do so in a clearly unacceptable fashion.

how come this has become a hunting and gun otakus thread? if you seriously want to vent your gun love at least do it outside of a thread that's mourning the death of 20 kids using said guns.

your attitude is simply incredible. it takes the 'yeah, whatever' stance to a new level.

I'm sorry if it comes across that way, but the thread clearly was about having a debate (even though it was opened with a dismissive SkyKid post), so it is not as if we are haranguing bereaved parents. I will admit the label "gun otaku" fits, but that doesn't mean the chance to have a discussion about real issues should be ignored simply because you want to feel good about yourself. Like Jon said, you are being self-righteous and don't want to listen to any reason that doesn't fit with what you feel.

[brentsg]

a thread that's mourning the death of 20 kids using said guns.

Oh please. You've done no mourning whatsoever. Looking at your posts in this thread and all I see is you looking down your nose and casting righteous judgment.

That's no different than what most other people are doing.

[Jon]

He's the only one actually claiming that people are shitting all over a thread that supposedly originated with a noble purpose like honoring murdered children.

[Super Laydock]

Shmups... abbreviation suddenly doesn't need explaining.

I am all for assault guns and rocket launchers... for Vic V. and the likes.

[rapoon]

how come this has become a hunting and gun otakus thread? if you seriously want to vent your gun love at least do it outside of a thread that's mourning the death of 20 kids using said guns.

your attitude is simply incredible. it takes the 'yeah, whatever' stance to a new level.

the general purpose use of these weapons (self-defense, hunting, etc) has to be discussed to address the underlying issue: do they belong in the hands of civilians?
it does not dismiss the sadness that anyone may have towards the victims and family members of last weeks shooting.

I apologize if I came across as insensitive. That was never my intention.

an argument has to be made that gun owners will listen to otherwise the NRA and supporters will continue to fall back on the same bullshit excuses
and resolutions they've preached for years: they're for... uhhhhh..... hunting, give guns to teachers. give guns to 1st graders, etc.

[neorichieb1971]

What about democracy? What if the US government put the gun debate to the vote and 80% said to do away with guns?

It seems the USA (2nd biggest democracy in the world) doesn't stretch its democracy values to this issue. It may not make the problem go away, but at least you could say "all that could be done has been done". I think the US is quite a way short of doing "the best it can".

Movies make life look cheap, videogames glorify violence without any of the remorse attached. Therefore the media should butt in and make people visualize the pain, the anguish, the heartbreak. The funeral should be broadcast live and all your actors, singers, artists should be right behind it. A message pleading all "would be" massacre prone people to really think twice before mimicking this type of scene. They should be urged to come forward and get professional help. Because from where I am standing nothing is being done to help those in need of attention. Since the only thing I can think of that the perpetrator is getting out of this is attention.

The people doing this have lost hope obviously. When you consider that is the fundamental cure, the USA might actually be able to live safe with the current rules and regulations.