Darrell, you could not be much more wrong. When a neighboring state like Virginia allows the purchase of almost anything you blame Maryland laws? Nonsense.

If only the first victim, Adam Lanza's mother, had been a gun owner, she could have stopped this before it started.

Tillie, I am not sure if you are serious or not. So, I will take your comment at face value. The weapons that Adam Lanza used were his mothers weapons.

Tillie, perhaps you have not been watching. Perhaps you are being sarcastic. But Mrs. Lanza was the owner of the gun(s) that shot her while she was sleeping.

Dennis, you are spot on with your assessment of this problem.

I want to throw out a scenario to those people who feel that putting a gun into those teachers hands would have somehow made them thwart this attack. This school was filled with children. Now, instead of one person shooting in that school, you could have had the potential for 2 or more people shooting and it would have turned into a gun fight, in close quarters, under high stress. Imagine what the casualty count would have been. Next, add in the police that are responding and trying to figure out who the active shooter is, amid 2 or more gunmen shooting at each other.

As a member of the military who trains on this exact type of scenario, it is one of our biggest nightmares to respond to an Active Shooter scenario, only to find out that one of the building occupents has decided to take matters into their own hands and open fire on the Active Shooter. Now, we have to figure out who the good guy is, and who the bad guy is. Oh, top it off with a casualty count at least twice what we saw last week.

Yeah Steve - It is absolutely better to let the killer go about his business and kill people unopposed. Gosh, if someone had been carrying a gun imagine the horrific scene... oh wait... oh oh, I just thought of another possibility - what if the do-gooder ccw holder gets confused and starts shooting wildly and thinks the kids are the shooters, the whole thing could go totally wrong and turn out to be a tragedy.

Bowie Boy, you are way off base. The Titanic was not designed to kill people. It accidentally struck an iceberg. The AR-15 is designed to kill people, in the hands of a crazy person the weapon (tool) did performed perfectly for what it is designed to do. The tool executed 20 first graders, seven adults and one mass murderer. Everyone of them with multiple shots except the madman, he only needed one.

FIFA- the shooter killed himself with a handgun, have you been paying attention......

Excuse me. One bullet from the handgun.

Bowie boy, you have no clue what reckless endangerment means unless you are applying it to the SCOTUS and their 2nd amendment 5-4 decision that overturned 200 years of rulings. You have mixed apples and oranges in a supremely asinine attempt to link Sandy Hook with the Titanic. Try basket weaving.

@FIFA and @Frank, you seem to be missing the points here. You weaken your argument by attacking those who disagree with you. Stating that an object killed 28 people is factually inaccurate. Calling people asinine and idiotic is simply sophomoric and indicates you are incapable of having a debate on this very serious issue. I for one thought Bowie Boy tried to put a tragic loss into some perspective with regards to our government’s response to the greatest tragedy of a particular generation. Try sticking to facts and logic and move past the name calling. Perhaps it’ll help you set a better example to your children or at the very least, become a better person.

FIFA, I’m sorry, you seem to need some help with this… Reckless Endangerment - if a person recklessly engages in conduct which creates a substantial risk of serious physical injury to another person. My use of term was applied 100% accurately. Don’t challenge me on what I know or may not know because you don’t know me. Stop attacking me and concentrate the issue because it’s too important to neglect. I challenge you to re-read my original post because it’s hard to debate this fact: Our society needs greater emphasis on parental responsibility.

Both Britt and Boy (as called by Britt) aren't even close. A military weapon killed these children. If the weapon or something similar was not available it would not have happened. That is simple and accurate. As long as weapons like this exist amongst the population this carnage will occur again and again no matter what you believe.

Boy, you don't know me, I am not an uneducated fool. Reckless endangerment did not occur here except by the SCOTUS that allows weapons like these to exist and be purchased routinely by morons. I didn't attack you until you made a stupid correlation between the Titanic and Sandy Hook and now you try to make a reckless endangerment argument. Everyone involved here was adults, except the first graders killed by the weapons you support. Congratulations, you are probably happy it wasn't your kids. Very well might be next time a nut gets a military style weapon with a 90 round clip.

In the state of Maryland, reckless endangerment is classified as a misdemeanor assault and often used as a plea, down one step from second degree assault. http://bit.ly/VR3kIg

How reckless endangerment can be applied to a murder case is a murky sort of reasoning.

Let's see, crazy human pulls trigger, then boom, first grader dies. Does that help you out boy? You seem to endorse the murder of first graders.

I make my toast via reckless endangerment every day. If only I didn't haphazardly put bread into the machine and press down on the lever.

Sadly, boy, little b emphasized, you are the problem and people who think like you.

Psst, I will not shut up as long as idiots like you continue to espouse your nonsense.

Frank, Jim Jones killed over 300 children without a gun. In fact, had he used a gun, there is no way he would have ben able to kill as many as he did (900+). Why are you not asking to outlaw Kool Aid?

BB - you can't seriously equate the Jim Jones situation to any of the recent massacres, can you? Once you have a cult mentality, all bets are off. What's next, David Koresh?

Please try to present arguments that are more representative of typical random mass murders (if we can ever consider a mass murder "typical")

Not a good point in the slightest. This dipwad could have used bombs to kill just as many, if not more, children and adults.

The guns are not the problem, mentally ill people are, and the illegalization of some things that should not be illegal (like the drug trade) is the problem.

But this dip wad and those before him going back to Columbine don't use bombs do they?

So very sadly, you witnessed their use last week. This week we get to see the funerals of first graders. If one can avoid the eyes of Emily, one has absolutely no feelings at all for children. I still see her eyes every day. It makes me puke when I hear people like OT defend guns.

Adam Lanza. Evets, that was a pathetic question. Go read the legal definition of an assault weapon. Do I need to get you a bus ticket to the library?

I'm sure everyone here wold "know" an assault rifle when they see it even though most of the people on here complaining about guns no nothing about them. Do you know what the difference is between a semi-automatic "assault rifle" and semi-automatic hunting refle.

The biggest difference is style. All semi-automics work in the same basic way. The assault wepons ban was a ban on scary looking guns. It made the politicians look like they were doing something, but it had little effect on gun violence.

Washington DC and Chicago have some of the most strict gun control in the country, and they also have some of the highest incidents of gun violence.

So lease don't try to tell me that gun control does anything except curtail the rights of law abiding citizens. The criminals will contcinue to do what they will.

I also take exception to the thought of having to prove my need to own a gun. The whole point of the second amendment was to allow citizens to defend themselves. Whether the aggressor is a criminal, terrorist, foreign military, or our own government. The founders wanted the America people to have the tools for their own defense

You can outlaw the guns all you want, if someone wants one they will find it somewhere. It is the person that decides to kill someone not the gun and it starts in the home.

This wasn't an assault rifle. This was an assault-STYLED (meaning look like) gun which is analogous to my .22 rifle that holds 15 bullets and shoots one bullet for each pull of the trigger.

I.E. semi-automatic. The bullets that the Bushmaster uses are .223, which is only a fraction of a millimeter bigger than the bullets used in my .22 rifle as well.

Sorry Christopher, you are wrong. The Bushmaster AR-15 used in these muders of children is a semi-automatic assault weapon. Go look it up on the ATF website if you like. The fact that the round fired is a similar diameter cartridge of your .22 rifle, this assault rifle and bullet isn't your every day .22. The round is longer and has a 3000+ feet per second velocity. It is a maiming and killing machine when paired with a 90 round magazine. The proof are the 27 dead with 3-11 rounds in each of them.

You don't know what you are writing about.

FIFA, from our friends a Wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assault_weapon

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assault_rifle

So the term assault weapon really means nothing.

The "straw man argument" ,as you term it, is the sine qua non of debating compared to the garbage I have been reading. But, I am not trying to win an argument. Rather I am interested in engaging in discussion that strips away the ridiculous defensiveness and invective that appears above.

Actually, plutonium isn't a weapon at all until someone decides to make one and, then, use it. Semi-automatic weapons, like thermonuclear warheads, lay beyond the ken of Founding White Men.

Truth be told, I am ambivalent about both guns and thermonuclear weapons--and, oh yes, about debate. Nevertheless, you are a bright light here and I value your perspective.

Agreed. I have some issues with some points of view that you have said, but on this issue you are right on the money.

FIFA

Far more people die every year from hand gun violence than from these so called assault wepons. But since a large number of those killed are inner city minorities, the media is MIA.

I would support the absolute banning of the sale or possession of any semi-automatic gun. 20-25 years in jail no parole. That would go a very long way to reducing murder by gun.

Will it happen, of course not, I am a realist. But those that take the opposite position must be realists as well. The check above will continue to be written, just the amount changes.

FIFA, it would just shift those things from 'murder by gun' to 'murder by knife, murder by bomb, murder by X'.

It wouldn't do anything to get rid of these murders, period and done with, argument finished.

What would get rid of these murders would be teaching children from birth that there is never, save if someone is trying to kill you at that very moment, a reason to kill another person.

Plus, strengthening our mental health web in America today.

Here is how it was finished for 20 first graders and seven adults.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5XzQ1BS7gU&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dm5XzQ1BS7gU

Hey, it's the FBIs numbers. As usual when you don't like the facts, you attack the source.

I doubt you even read it.

As I said myself, "Will it happen, of course not, I am a realist."

Bowie Boy says, "Focus on the problem and not the method of delivery". I say, that will not happen as it is better known as kicking the can down the road.

Your arguments about 9/11 and McVeigh don't hold water either. We disagree, it is a gun problem. You will not fix societal problems.

Smoking cigarettes is not a constitutional right.

Look, we place reasonable limits on gun ownership. All the hand wringing about "semi-automatic' wepons is ridiculous. Most modern wepons are semi-automatic. This is because they are more efficient and easier to use.

Banning certain types of wepons will not prevent tragedies like this, at best, it could reduce the number of people killed or wounded.

Focusing on mental health and keeping guns out of the Hands of people with mental illness can help prevent these shooting from occurring at all.

Thanks, Sanchez, for all that you do on the ground to protect the Republic and the civil liberties for which our forefathers fought.

Give a link. Latest from the Medical Examiner was that they were all shot with the AR-15.

Here is what the Connecticut State Police have to say. Perhaps you should retract your post?

http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/18/us/connecticut-lanza-guns/index.html

As noted above, the AR-15 was the weapon used for the killings.

Sanchez may take this opportunity to slam NBC News as unreliable (lets him transfer the blame for his error), but I have learned over many years that any and all reports released while the event is occurring or just after are very likely to be inaccurate - be it mass killings, tsunamis, hurricanes, blizzards, whatever. Every news outlet wants to be first out with breaking news and sometimes they release whatever they hear without verification. Brian Ross of ABC has gotten caught by this on several occasions.

To his main point: This country is a democracy, and if the majority stands up for a change in the gun laws, it will be the law - Even if the 2nd Amendment requires changes. Note I said changes, not repeal. I think having a 2nd Amendment is vital, but the current 18th century document needs to be updated for the 21st century.

Why is it we always disproportionately blame inanimate objects for the actions that people take?

Chris, the key to your point is "disproportionately". We each have a different measure of proportion. I believe semi-automatic weapons have a primary purpose which is to kill people, some much more effective at that than others. Can they be used for other things, of course.

I believe Honeygo Hal is right. The 2nd amendment has been mangled by the current SCOTUS. It described a situation that is now over 200 years old and I believe the writers did not realize what was going to happen with "arms". In my opinion, the amendment as designed is no longer meaningful and was not originally intended for your personal protection. You disagree. The current makeup of the SCOTUS disagrees. That very well might change over the next 4 years.

There is no doubt the framers of the constitution in the period in which they lived wanted to prevent an invading army from taking over our country, thus the reason for the phrase that starts the amendment, "A well regulated militia, being necessary for the security of a free state". They had no clue what technology would bring at the time they wrote that amendment. No one did.

We will never agree on this. But I bet we will agree that school, mall, etc. mass shootings will continue to occur and occur and we are not done burying people.

"There is no doubt the framers of the constitution in the period in which they lived wanted to prevent an invading army from taking over our country, thus the reason for the phrase that starts the amendment..."

Incorrect. The phrasing was not to protect from an invading army, but to protect from a tyrannical government. In other words, the States (as individual "countries") when unified did not want another King taking over and thus mandated that the people of the state be allowed to be armed should they need to rise up in such a case. Certainly anachronistic, but understandable and relevant to some today.

Now, that was RAW (rule-as-written) but there is also RAI (rule-as-intended). Where did the Second Amendment come from? What laws were used as a basis? A key basis was old English laws focusing on allowing individuals to arm themselves (at the time with melee weaponry and occasional archaic firearms), for both hunting and protection. There were no such things as police to protect individual families or small communities; it was up to the citizens to do this. Thus, the Second Amendment stemmed from an individual's right to do what authorities could not: constantly protect themselves, their families, and their property.

The Supreme Court recognized this in recent cases, using it as the basis for their decisions on whether the Second Amendment was an individual right or a militia's right.

FIFA, I understand that you have very strong feelings on the subject and respect your opinion; however, I feel it is based on a misconception. The primary purpose of all guns is to kill, of that there is no doubt. But semi-automatic wepons are simply a more modern and efficient design. That's it.

We have more than just the words of the second amendment to understand what the founders were thinking about in regards to the right to bear arms. I think they knew exactly what they were doing. The founders distrusted centralized government and especially standing armies. They felt that citizens should have the means to protect themselves from their own government if necessary. See the quotes below for some insight.

"Americans have the right and advantage of being armed - unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms." - James Madison

"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of people always possess arms, and be taught alike especially when young, how to use them." - Richard Henry Lee

Actually Brook as I read Madison's papers it is both in my opinioin. Regarding the SCOTUS Heller decision, I expected it as I have expected most decisions coming from this court. I think I have predicted at least 95% correctly. Roberts surprised me on ACA. I hold out hope that make-up will significantly change over the next 12 years, time will tell. I believe they (5-4 mind you) decided wrongly, but I don't get one of those votes.

Chris, I do have strong feelings and after hearing the head of the NRA suggest we arm the country today, I am even more concerned. I can't imagine the terror that went through those children waiting to be killed.

But as I said, minds change very slowly. We have staked out our positions.

I totally agree with scott morton.

Cuomo, Hitler, Stalin, Mao AND Fifi, birds of a feather.

Oh good. The tin foil hat crowd has arrived.