In reading about yesterday's events, I immediately wondered about those close to me. Hopefully none of my fellow BPL members were involved personally in yesterday's tragedy. My heart goes out to the families and loved ones of those who were; I have no words.

Newtown is a picture perfect "Norman Rockwell" New England small town. Have a look

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ll=41.413558,-73.308739&spn=0.000506,0.001321&t=h&z=20

I went to see Lincoln last night for the second time. The man was so gentle; I can see the scene of him getting down on the floor embracing Todd and then lifting him up piggy-back. But he was also so strong, so resolute. He refused to look away.

Have a look at little Newtown. Maybe making a little virtual visit will help start the process of really looking at what we are doing to ourselves.

So Scott how are things in beautiful Valdese, home of Joe Brown? I can hear Bill Curry "the mouth of the South" now. You a descendant of the Waldensians?

Hopefully, people will survive this as best they can. And other incidents like the one that just happened in Portland.

Are these just rare events that we shouldn't worry about?

Maybe don't do so much reporting on the TV?

At least we shouldn't make the killer famous which might encourage others to do the same, like don't use the person's name or show his picture?

It doesn't seem like gun regulations would help much. The person in Portland used an assault weapon, but not Newtown, so making these illegal wouldn't be very effective? Maybe making clips that hold more than 10 rounds? Maybe not allowing more than one shot per second or something?

On NPR they observed that most killers are young white males that are mentally disturbed, have a facination with guns, and like video games. I don't know where you go with that though...

These sort of tragedies really start a huge national brainstorm. Hopefully in the long run emotions give way to finding the real
problems and then effective answers.

Edited- kinda decided this isn't the place I want to debate.

Edited by oware on 12/16/2012 17:32:06 MST.

It's a tragedy, but all these events are linked by easy access to guns. A day or so ago, a similar incident happened in China. China is very strict on gun ownership. In the Chinese incident, the guy used a knife, and stabbed over 20 students. They are all expected to recover.
Mental illness, guns, ...........

Mike,

Do you enjoy being wrong? Because in 2010 6 of these incidents happened in China. 20 dead and 50 wounded. And they weren't linked to easy access to guns.

The gun is just the mode. You see knives, pipebombs, and whatever weapon the people can get their hands on.

I'm confused by the point you are trying to make Michael?

Can you provide links to your assertions?

Anyway, i don't want to comment on this anymore. Too many folks have lost loved ones.

Edited by MikefaeDundee on 12/15/2012 12:26:17 MST.

If this thread is going to go into an endless gun control debate could we wait? I don't mind those debates at all but it seems like poor taste at the moment. For all I know we may have members here connected to the tragedy in some way.

+1 with Luke.

I think our focus needs to be on the victims and their families.


- Charlotte Bacon, 02/22/06, female.
- Daniel Barden, 09/25/05, male.
- Rachel Davino, 07/17/83, female.
- Olivia Engel, 07/18/06, female.
- Josephine Gay, 12/11/05, female.
- Ana M. Marquez-Greene, 04/04/06, female.
- Dylan Hockley, 03/8/06, male.
- Dawn Hocksprung, 06/28/65, female.
- Madeleine F. Hsu, 07/10/06, female.
- Catherine V. Hubbard, 06/08/06, female.
- Chase Kowalski, 10/31/05, male.
- Jesse Lewis, 06/30/06, male.
- James Mattioli , 03/22/06, male.
- Grace McDonnell, 12/04/05, female.
- Anne Marie Murphy, 07/25/60, female.
- Emilie Parker, 0 5/12/06, female.
- Jack Pinto, 0 5/06/06, male.
- Noah Pozner, 11/20/06, male.
- Caroline Previdi, 09/07/06, female.
- Jessica Rekos, 05/10/06, female.
- Avielle Richman, 10/17/06, female.
- Lauren Russeau, 06/1982, female.
- Mary Sherlach, 02/11/56, female.
- Victoria Soto, 11/04/85, female.
- Benjamin Wheeler, 09/12/06, male.
- Allison N. Wyatt, 07/03/06, female.

Maybe hike a mile in honor of each victim.

"Mental illness, guns, ..........."

The general attitude toward guns in this country is a mental illness.

+1 Tom.

Three hundred million plus guns (and rising) in this country: I'd say gun advocates have clearly won this fight, perhaps with the minor exception of getting non-neutered military weaponry into the hands of our friends and neighbors.

With numbers like this, what's there to debate?

We could stop sales and production tomorrow and still have enough weaponry to last us a hundred years.

So maybe the gun advocates are right, maybe what our country actually needs is everyone carrying a gun to be safe now, from K-12 teachers to college professors to movie theater employees, to the guy in the shoe department at JC Penny and your server at Jamba Juice in the mall food court. Soccer moms and bank tellers and the random kid sitting at Starbucks sipping a Frappuccino in front of his laptop...let's all start carrying to save ourselves.

One gun for every single man, woman, and child in this nation is clearly not enough; maybe we can double or triple it by the time my kids are grown.

On the local news, there was someone who had a gun at Clackamas Town Center in Portland. He said he drew his gun on the shooter, but he saw people in back that could have been shot accidentally so he fled instead. He said the shooter saw him and soon after killed himself, so maybe that worked having other people with guns around. This guy was a security person by profession and was trying to become a policeman.

I could imagine a case where the other person wouldn't be so careful.

Or people could think there was a shooter when there wasn't and accidentally shoot people themseleves.

That doesn't seem like a good solution to have everyone have a gun.

I want people with guns to be very well trained - like police.

Immediately address the issue of gun control through the introduction of legislation in Congress. http://wh.gov/RN6U

edit

Edited by book on 12/15/2012 21:03:53 MST.

Well, that didn't take long. Another sad catastrophe, another non-dialog quickly devolving into a gun control/gun availability 'debate'.

Sigh.

If only we could get past our pettiness and emotional responses and actually have an adult discussion on why these things might be happening. It goes far beyond guns. There is so much more involved in these shootings than guns - I'm not even convinced that gun control/gun availability is the major issue.

If we want to try figure it all out, we need to include health care and mental illness counseling/treatment availability, the prevalence of violent imagery in much of our media, the ever increasing hate speech/segmentation of society, and more.

To simplify such tragedies down to the sole issue of guns is lazy, inane and counterproductive, and IMO, is an injustice to those so callously murdered.

Douglas..."sigh"...there's always been crazy people, and murderers. Today, crazy people and murderers in the U.S. have access to military style weapons. You want to solve the larger problem of insanity and disaffected individuals; evil. Good luck. In Europe, there are just as many crazy people and disaffected individuals as in the U.S. Compare the mass murder numbers. Europe doesn't sell military assault weapons over the counter and at gun shows to the general public. We do.

The nra is the john birch society of our time.

It certainly does go far beyond guns Doug.

But to act as if guns have no place in this discussion when they are the tool that facilitates a single deranged person being able to inflict massive and otherwise disproportionate amounts of harm to others so quickly that no nobody has time to stop them...

To not be allowed to address and discuss the role that guns play in enabling this madness is an injustice to those so callously murdered.

Why do you anti gun nuts have to derail every thread that touches upon guns.

Again, look at china. Knives, axes, etc are being used to kill children there to.

My 4 and 6 year olds got a lot of extra hugs yesterday. They thought it funny that their dad was so sentimental. My thoughts are with those affected by this unimaginable tragedy.