When will the local media start asking the real questions about gun control and violence?

1. Neither of his parents were present at the first court appearance ??

2. Then, yesterday, 10 killed and 7 wounded at Oregon school. It’s to late for gun control. To many guns on the street. It would be a good idea to impose (strict as buying new) used guns federal background checks. As of now, a private party can resell without a formal transfer. Also, pawn brokers can buy and sell used guns without paperwork. Most do it anyway but many do not.

3. “Neither of his parents were present at the first court appearance ??”

   Like I said, makes you wonder where he got the gun. Mason got a heckuva public defender, Mike Butler. If you think this will be a 1 day trial, you are mistaken.

4. “Also, pawn brokers can buy and sell used guns without paperwork.” This is entirely incorrect and, like most things you comment about on this site, you have no idea what you’re talking about. Spouting random gibberish and made up facts is annoying and getting old. Loudness and frequency does not make you correct!

   You need an FFL license to properly sell a gun.

   https://www.atf.gov/firearms/listing-federal-firearms-licensees-ffls-2015

   Until they find a way to magically, retroactively create a serial number database of every gun in every private collection so that they can catalog every sale, private party to private party sales can’t/won’t be regulated. There’s also no law against bad/absentee parenting…..

5. “There’s also no law against bad/absentee parenting…..”

   Not specifically, but I can guarantee it will be brought up in court where he got the gun, and if the road leads back to his parents, there could be consequences.

6. There’s too many – it’s too late – it’ll never happen – excuses, excuses, excuses. Yeah, because Americans are the “can’t do it” country. The NRA controls the legislature – not the PEOPLE!! Fact is – it CAN be done – if only we can get our legislators to IGNORE the NRA.

   ” A little more than 19 years ago, in the aftermath of one of the worst massacres in Australia’s history, its government passed a robust series of new gun laws called the National Firearms Agreement and Buyback Program. The strict controls mandated by the NFA effectively banned the possession of a range of deadly weapons. In 12 days, the Australians achieved what gun control advocates in the United States have failed at for decades.

   Just 12 days later, state and federal leaders proposed, voted on and passed new legislation that would restrict and prohibit the sale and ownership of almost every kind of semi-automatic rifle and rapid-fire gun over the course of a little more than two years. Under one provision of the new NFA, the government used revenue from a small tax hike to pay for a mandatory buyback of over 643,000 firearms. That number would surpass 700,000 after an outpouring of voluntary hand-ins. The program cost $230 million.

   How did they do it? Liberal Party Prime Minister John Howard, a conservative presiding over a moderate coalition government, had been in office for only seven weeks when the killings began.”

   http://mic.com/articles/123049/19-years-after-passing-strict-gun-control-laws-here-s-what-happened-in-australia

7. Here’s some actual journalism being done, albeit not “local” to Harrisburg – http://www.capjournal.com/news/ex-riggs-student-charged-in-school-shooting-near-sioux-falls/article_06f4119e-6874-11e5-a015-770e6e77f45f.html

8. A story to read from Pierre. And for the love of Pete people, and I have more than one issue with guns that you can load 30 rounds into, but until we have resources for these individuals and this country also gets passionate about mental health, this is going to continue. Even with stricter gun laws, it’s not going to stop a motivated individual to acquire these guns. I can pay a $30 copay if I break my leg, but if I need mental counseling,? insurance is not an option, and mental health is rarely affordable. Remember that middle class and below that is struggling to pay their monthly bills? You can start with gun laws – but it goes way beyond that, and if people do not think so, they are missing it.

   http://www.capjournal.com/news/ex-riggs-student-charged-in-school-shooting-near-sioux-falls/article_06f4119e-6874-11e5-a015-770e6e77f45f.html

9. http://www.snopes.com/crime/statistics/ausguns.asp

10. http://www.gunfacts.info/gun-control-myths/guns-in-other-countries/

11. Not true Karma –

    http://www.mentalhealth.gov/get-help/health-insurance/

    The “evil Obama Care” requires coverage for mental health and substance abuse.

12. Because of the law (ACA) most health plans must now cover preventive services, like depression screening for adults and behavioral assessments for children, at no additional cost. And, as of 2014, most plans cannot deny you coverage or charge you more due to pre-existing health conditions, including mental illnesses.

13. Everything begins at home. Good grades or bad grades….good self concept or lousy concept…..responsibility or lack of responsibility….

    I am tired of the government being expected to do the jobs many parents no longer do but pass on to society. If you are doing a good job of parenting you know your child and work with your child. As a good parent you nurture your child and wrap them in love, reasonable expectations, and responsible self-discipline.

    All of my children were taught to shoot a gun around the age of 10. We put everything we had into parenting! All my children are wonderful, responsible adults.

    The gun did not cause the murder anymore than the spoon made Rosy O’Donnell fat. The problem is society slack offs as well a mental problems.

    Back in the 1950’s the high schools taught students to shoot and handle guns. There were teams for competition. It is time to get back to reality.

    If someone at UCC had had a gun things might have been very different. The last two weeks in Chicago produced 111 murders. Where is the outrage? The gun laws there are some of the strictest in the nation!! Gun laws only remove the individual’s right to defend himself.

    The deadliest weapon that was used in the most murders is the knife. Shall we ban all knives?

    Criminals prefer unarmed citizens and dictators prefer unarmed societies.

    The reason the Japanese did not invade the USA in WWII was they feared the civilian armed army.

    https://www.youtube.com/embed/0sujnvIV4g4

14. It is time to end the special protection which has been afforded to the gun industry in many states when it comes to civil product liability lawsuits.

    The day the gun industry is held accountable for these continual heinous acts of violence as a profit motivated accommodating accomplice is the day we will truly begin to put an end to gun violence in America.

    If a homeowner can be sued because someone slips and falls on the sidewalk in front of their home, even though they do not even technically own that land which the sidewalk is on, then a gun manufacturer certainly can and should be held accountable whenever a gun is used in a violent heinous act.

    Laws, that protect the gun industry’s mere financial interests, are unnecessary costly accomplices to violence and death in our country. They are also unconstitutional when they create a special class which is protected from the normal realities of potential adjudication, especially when this exception affords no benefit to the greater whole of society and only services to protect the financial and economical development interests of some at the expense of the many Americans who are killed or maimed each year from guns.

    There are some, especially gun owners, who think the solution to this problem is to arm everyone, but that is not the answer either. That is merely the answer of some in denial. Such a strategy will not stop those who act do to a mental illness and it would only heighten tensions amongst the many and make road rage a even sadder blood sport.

    We should all take a page from conservative political thought on this one and rely on the market to solve this one. Make the gun industry financially responsible for gun violence in America and they will quickly become an ally to significantly reduce “this violent menace in our society today.”

15. http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/10/02/an-impassioned-sheriff-clarke-proposes-law-that-can-be-changed-to-reduce-deaths-from-gun-violence/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Firewire%20-%20HORIZON%2010-3-15%20FINAL&utm_term=Firewire

    Impassioned Sheriff Clarke Proposes Law That ‘Can Be Changed’ to Reduce Deaths From Gun Violence
    Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke appeared on the Fox News Channel Friday evening and offered host Megyn Kelly a solution aimed at reducing deaths caused by gun violence.
    Clarke’s suggestion came in response to a question Kelly posed to her other guest, Obama 2012 national field director Jeremy Bird, about what can be done to stop incidents like Thursday’s mass shooting which claimed the lives of nine victims.
    “I’ll answer your question on what law can be changed,” Clarke said. “We should get rid of these gun-free zones.”
    “We should allow people … to be able to play a role in their own safety,” the outspoken sheriff continued. “I think it’s heartless to expect people in these gun-free zones to be lined up and slaughtered with on way to defend themselves. These gun-free zones have become killing fields. That is the one constant in all of these mass murders.”
    The sheriff noted that there are “no absolutes,” but said things can be changed to save lives.
    “Here are some things that I think might work,” he said. “Here’s what I think should happen … citizens should be able to play a role in their own personal safety.”
    “The only thing that stopped that incident yesterday was when a good guy, a police officer with a gun showed up and they were able to neutralize that homicidal maniac,” Clarke noted.
    Clarke’s suggestion stands in contrast to President Barack Obama’s proposal which causes for the implementation of stricter gun-control measures.
    (Note that Obama is not dismissing his body guards or telling them to leave eliminate their weapons.)

16. Good comments here. I think guns remind us of our freedom and gun ownership is a constitutional right. In this part of the country they’re almost a part of our culture. If you do not own a gun, thats also your privelege. The latest problem is troubled teens. It’s an awkward part of growing up magnified by our complex society. Yes, there should be better gun control. It’s working for new firearms but used resale guns should have the same requirements. Also, there should be a 7 day waiting period for all gun transfers.

17. “(Note that Obama is not dismissing his body guards or telling them to leave eliminate their weapons.)”

    Wow, that is not even apples and oranges. It is more like grapes and bananas. The average Joe does not receive death threats and the average Joe’s death would not result in placing in potential jeopardy the continuity of government of a major super power.

    This idea of getting rid of “gun-free zones” to solve this problem is enabling at best. It is an attempt to protect gun owners obsessive needs with no eventual solvency for the problem. It is smoke screen politics. To suggest that arming people will lessen the problem is possible in some cases, but you will not significantly stop it. It is illogical to think you can use logic with a gun man who is mentally ill. And quite frankly, the degree it would lessen the carnage is debatable, especially since many of these assailants seem to be suicidal – not to mention the collateral damage from friendly fire and the scary thought of armed vigilantes roaming in our midst, especially when you take into account laws on the books like in Florida which empower gun owners to shoot do to a standard of their established fear rather than the established fear of a reasonable and prudent person.

18. Short of a total confiscation of every gun owned by law-abiding citizens, this problem is not going to go away. There is not gun show loophole. Statistics also show the “problem” of gun violence has a lot more to do with illegally purchased guns, stolen guns or guns purchased by straw man purchases. These are all illegal under current law. So just what proposal are you thinking of that would have stopped any of these sad situations? BTW, used resale guns by dealers do have the same requirements as new gun sales.

19. http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/10/03/barack-obama-ignores-obvious-yet-another-fatherless-killer/

    Obama Ignores the Obvious in Oregon: Yet Another Fatherless Killer

    by Thomas D. Williams, Ph.D. 3 Oct 2015

    How President Barack Obama and countless other politicians and pundits can fail to grasp—or be unwilling to confront—the obvious connection between the breakdown of American family life and a rise in violent crime is a mystery deserving examination.

    For example, after Thursday’s Oregon mass shooting, Obama predictably focused attention on the availability of firearms on America, calling on citizens to pressure legislators to enact gun control laws.

    “The reporting is routine. My response here at this podium ends up being routine,” Obama said in a remarkably lucid moment of his speech.

    What Obama did not say in his impassioned address, what would have truly been a break in the “routine” and rhetoric that inevitably follow tragedies involving firearms, was that 26-year-old shooter Chris Harper Mercer was the umpteenth example of a fatherless boy who grows up to be a violent criminal.

    It is, of course, much easier to blame guns for our problems than to address the underlying causes of American violence. For one thing, gun control is a popular, quick fix. All it takes is a law and legislators can pat themselves on the back for having “dealt with” the problem.

    Fatherlessness, on the other hand, is a trickier affair that requires more complicated and unpopular solutions, such as dealing with America’s ridiculously lax no-fault divorce laws and a culture that privileges independence over personal responsibility.

    And no one wants to face the ugly truth that our current redefinition of marriage from its historical identity as the union of one man and one woman has effectively made the role of fathers optional. By putting the desires of adults above the needs of children, we inadvertently feed the fire of violent crime.

    According to reports, Mercer lived with his mother, Laurel Harper, and they kept mostly to themselves. One neighbor said that she called him “baby” all the time, even though he was an adult. Meanwhile, Mercer’s father lives in Tarzana, now married to another woman and completely detached from his son’s life.

    Mercer’s case is not atypical.

    The closer one looks, the more a trend emerges in this kind of violent massacre. Take, for example, the case of Dylann Roof, the 21-year-old who murdered nine people at a church in Charleston last June 17. Roof, too, came from a broken home and grew up with no father.

    As one report noted after that shooting, the media love to find an easy scapegoat for mass shootings, “whether it be the pharmaceutical industry, the National Rifle Association, or even Donald Trump. Of course these scapegoats are designed to fit the politically correct narrative, and they are an easy sell.”

    Such knee-jerk reactions allow the public to avoid the uncomfortable truth that unstable homes often produce unstable individuals.

    As University of Virginia Professor Brad Wilcox pointed out in 2013: “From shootings at MIT (i.e., the Tsarnaev brothers) to the University of Central Florida to the Ronald E. McNair Discovery Learning Academy in Decatur, Ga., nearly every shooting over the last year in Wikipedia’s ‘list of U.S. school attacks’ involved a young man whose parents divorced or never married in the first place.”

    Wilcox has noted the overwhelming social scientific evidence connecting violence and broken homes, which suggests that boys living in single mother homes are almost twice as likely to end up delinquent compared to boys who enjoy good relationships with their father.

    Another researcher, Harvard sociologist Robert Sampson, has written that “family structure is one of the strongest, if not the strongest, predictor of variations in urban violence across cities in the United States.”

    And criminologists Michael Gottfredson and Travis Hirschi, have further documented the fallout from fatherless families, writing that “such family measures as the percentage of the population divorced, the percentage of households headed by women, and the percentage of unattached individuals in the community are among the most powerful predictors of crime rates.”

    As long as politicians and the media choose to focus exclusively on firearm availability in their response to violent crime, they will continue to miss the most important element involved.

    A more mature response to America’s current crisis would begin with a serious discussion of what factors have come together to produce the breakdown of American families and what can be done to reverse this trend.

    Then we would be getting somewhere.

20. “Statistics also show the ‘problem’ of gun violence has a lot more to do with illegally purchased guns, stolen guns or guns purchased by straw man purchases. These are all illegal under current law.”

    Find, it just further proves why the gun industry must be held acceptable as fell as any gun owner whose gun is stolen. If you make it, or own it and it becomes lost or stolen, you should be held financially responsible under tort law if that gun ends up being used in a criminal act. If more people had skin in the game on this issue, then there would be less skin in harms way.

    If a thief steals your car and then crashes it into a building after having been pursed by the police your auto insurance will cover the losses to the owner of the building. The same rule of thumb should apply to the gun industry and gun owners as well.

    As far as “Fatherless boys” comments, Fb has merely identified the mental health variable of this tragic epidemic equation, but there are still other variables involved like the presence of guns in our society, which must be dealt with and to merely taught about the mental health element in this debate as the single or paramount problem is to merely add to the “smoke screen” strategy of the gun culture in our society today.

21. http://www.gunfacts.info/gun-control-myths/concealed-carry/

    Myth: Concealed carry doesn’t prevent crimes

    Fact: News reports tell many stories of armed civilians preventing mass murder in public. A few selected at random include:

    A citizen with a gun stopped a knife-wielding man as he began stabbing people in a Salt Lake City store.
    Two men retrieved firearms from their cars and stopped a mass murder at the Appalachian School of Law.
    Citizen takes out shooter while police were pinned down in Early, Texas.
    Citizen stops apartment shoot-up in Oklahoma City.

    Myth: Concealed carry laws increase crime

    Fact: Forty three states, comprising the majority of the American population, are “right-to-carry” states – thirty six are “shall issue” states where anyone without a criminal record will be issued a permit, and seven states require no permit.

    In 1988 there were only 10 “right-to-carry”. Statistics show that in these states the crime rate fell (or did not rise) after the right-to-carry law became active (as of July, 2006). Seven states are “may issue” states where it is nearly impossible to obtain a CCW permit.

    Fact: Gun homicides were 10% higher in states with restrictive CCW laws, according to a study spanning 1980-2009

    Fact: Crime rates involving gun owners with carry licenses have consistently been about 0.02% of all carry permit holders since Florida’s right-to-carry law started in 1988. 2

    Fact: After passing their concealed carry law, Florida’s homicide rate fell from 36% above the national average to 4% below.

    Fact: In Texas, murder rates fell 50% faster than the national average in the year after their concealed carry law passed. Rape rates fell 93% faster in the first year after enactment, and 500% faster in the second. 4 Assaults fell 250% faster in the second year. 5

    Fact: More to the point, crime is significantly higher in states without right-to-carry laws.
    Type of Crime 6% Higher in Restrictive States
    Robbery 105%
    Murder 86%
    Assault 82%
    Violent Crime 81%
    Auto Theft 60%
    Rape 25%

    Fact: States that disallow concealed carry have violent crime rates 11% higher than national averages.

    Fact: Deaths and injuries from mass public shootings fall dramatically after right-to-carry concealed handgun laws are enacted. Between 1977 and 1995, 8 the average death rate from mass shootings plummeted by up to 91% after such laws went into effect, and injuries dropped by over 80%.

22. So in other words, everything is just fine…. just fine… Good to hear!

    Fact 1: Those are merely empirical examples. I guess if you are not fortunate enough to be near a CW citizen then you just have to suffer the fate like those at Columbine, in Connecticut, or at Virginia Tech.

    Fact 2: All crimes have fallen during that time frame do the aging of our population.

    Fact 3: How high were they before the enactment is the real question? Plus, some states historically have higher crime rates do to multiple social and economic reasons.

    Fact 4: So what is your point? I thought we have already been told time after time by the NRA that law abiding citizens do not commit crimes and if you take away the guns then only criminals will have guns.

    Fact 5: Mere coincidence, crime fell once again because of the aging of our population, especially in more populated and historically high crime states like Florida. Criminals do not fear being caught, or executed so why should they fear being shot at by a potential victim?

    Fact 6: Once again, that is just mere coincidence. That is actually the result of a high crime rate state reaping greater benefits than a low crime rate state during a time when crime nationally is in decline for demographic reasons.

    Fact 7: A course it is, that is why right-to-carry is not allowed in those states, because it would be even worse with the right. It is all relative.

    Fact 8: And they always have had higher rates and “it would be worse with the right.”

    Fact 9: “Between 1977 and 1995,” I do not know what you know about debate, but it is not highly recommended in the debate world to quote facts which are 38 to 20 years old. Not to mention that ’95 predates the tragedies of Columbine and on…

    But when it is all said and done, I thought you alleged the problem was fatherless assailants. Now your argument is the lack of concealed weapons by law abiding citizens. What will be your next smoke screen argument?

23. Please don’t try to confuse Winston with facts. Let us take his example of the stolen car. I have a car that is off the road. The car is parked and not insured. Someone steals the car and is pursued by the police. The thief crashes the car into a building. The building owner comes after me because it was my car and believes I am liable. My lawyer gets the lawsuit thrown out as I had nothing to do with the incident. Winston, the problem with people like you is you like to target the wrong people.

24. http://www.redstate.com/2015/10/04/george-stephanopoulos-mass-shootings/?utm_source=rsmorningbriefing&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl

    James Alan Fox, a criminology professor has done the research and what he has come up with data between 1976 and 2012 reveals the following:

    Go to site to see graph of mass shootings (4 or more) from 1976 to 2011.

    There is no major upward trend during that time. There has been the addition of 24 hour news stations, the internet and of course social media which has allowed such news to spread very quickly. As Fox points out in a recent column in USA Today:

    More important, the increase in cases, if there was one at all, is negligible. Indeed, the only genuine increase is in hype and hysteria.

    It is easy to get caught up in the hype. Of course, President Obama must make everything about him so naturally he runs before the cameras after such tragedies looking to blame Republicans and the NRA for preventing him from “doing something.” Naturally, the President and his allies can never truly say what that “something” is, but apparently, it makes them feel better to say it.

    Because facts are irrelevant when they can score political points.

25. http://www.redstate.com/diary/aceintx/2015/10/02/hey-barry-already-law-shoot-people/

    Hey Barry, It’s Already AGAINST THE LAW To Shoot People! (EDITED)
    Here’s A Hint: Too Many Guns And A Lack Of Laws isn’t The Problem!

    By: AceInTX (Diary) | October 2nd, 2015 at 02:40 PM

    It was AGAINST THE LAW to carry guns and explode bombs on the campus of Columbine High School on April 20th, 1999.

    It was AGAINST THE LAW to carry guns on Fort Hood Texas November 5th, 2009.

    It was AGAINST THE LAW to carry a gun onto the campus of Sandy Hook Elementary School on December 14, 2012.

    It was AGAINST THE LAW to shoot up a prayer meeting in Charlston South Carolina on June 17th, 2015.

    In fact, it has always been AGAINST THE LAW to randomly, bomb, stab, kill or maim anyone, anywhere within the borders of the United States Of America.

    But somehow simply having A LAW hasn’t stopped any of the scum involved in all the instances mentioned above from killing 13 in Colombine High School, 13 in Fort Hood, 27 at Sandy Hook, and 9 in Charlatan South Carolina.

    Yet you want to grand stand? You want to Puff out your chest and declare you are right to “Politicize” this outrage!

    Pass a law, fix the problem right?

    Here is the issue. As the above named instances prove…simply passing laws doesn’t fix the problem.

    I went to high school in WV in the late 70s and early eighties where every truck had at least one high powered riffle and usually a 12 guage shotgun in a gun rack and every car had a rifle or shotgun in the trunk in the fall. We all wore Buck knives on our belts or carried a pocket knife in our pocket…yet none of this death, murder and mayhem happened back then.

    Yet, today, when we have gun free school zones we expel students for having fileting knives in their cars; or expel kids for drawing a gun or even chewing Pop Tarts to look like guns…yet we have murder and mayhem on an almost monthly basis.

    Hmm…why is that exactly?

    What has changed Barry?

    I would argue the issue is a heart issue.

    We teach that conscience and shame are bad things while preaching that everyone is special and entitled to feel, do anything and act in any way that makes them feel better.

    We teach if you don’t get your way or everything you want, it is someone else’s fault and it is ok for the government to take it away to give it to you! You are so special. YOU are entitled and if YOU can’t or wont EARN it, it is fine for you to TAKE IT!

    In entertainment we celebrate the degenerates who live by the rule “If it feels good do it!”

    We are a society who cuts up babies for profit. Babies who are butchered by the millions for convenience.

    We as a nation who turn a blind eye to the obvious fact that if you are harvesting a HUMAN heart, and a HUMAN liver, or a HUMAN brain from a HUMAN fetus, YOU ARE KILLING A HUMAN BEING!

    Not only that, its not enough that this is allowed in our country, you and members of BOTH PARTIES are fine with using tax dollars to PAY FOR IT…ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!!

    GONE is any sense of personal responsibility, empathy for your fellow man or consideration for anyone other than one’s self.

    All this while we jail, fine and deny the ability to earn a living to business owners and family owned corporations for daring to follow the dictates of their conscience or the tenets of their faith.

    We tax, jail condemn, belittle and demean anyone who doesn’t knuckle under to the new order. Anyone who disagrees or dares to object are haters unworthy of consideration, are subject to scorn and ridicule or even worthy of death.

    We are a society who denies the truth of the golden rule and makes it impossible to state the truth that one should treat others the way we want to be treated in public and in our schools.

    We are not allowed to discuss the ten commandments, post nativities in the public square, pray and fellowship with one another in our government buildings, school facilities or in public gatherings.

    We’ve banned Bibles and faith from our public discourse and declared evil only to exist when it is a Christian.

    We are prohibited to teach, study, express or even consider the wisdom of the ages written down in the Bible chronicling thousands of years of history and experience of a people.

    We celebrate the speech of bigots like Richard Dawkins and Bill Maher while censoring the speech of Christians in public forums….but I digress.

    To top it ALL off, now YOU want to ignore what this gunman asked before he shot these victims…”What is your religion? If you were a Christian, you got shot in the head….if not…you were shot in the leg…

    Finally, You sir, have conducted yourself in office as if THE LAW DOESNT APPLY TO YOU.

    YOU have set an example for all of us, that if a law is inconvenient, it can and should just be ignored.

    Well BARRY…Tell me again how another law will do anything to prevent anything like this from happening again.

    History has proven; (and will continue to prove), a law won’t make a difference…and YOU have proven by your conduct in office that law doesn’t matter when it is an inconvenience to your entitled self.

    I would argue that we will only stop this when we reestablish a respect for the law…when our leaders and courts once again show a respect for the law as embodied by our Constitution and the Creator consulted during its addoption.

    This will only stop when we show a respect for life and stop the butchery of tens of millions of babies in the name of choice and convenience.

    Finally, this will only stop when we cease the marketing of murdered children in the name research and progress.

    (I will note you and your Party are dead set against ending this barbarity so please spare me your moral posturing and feigned indignation!)

    Finally, we will never be able to stop this short of a respect for THE natural law cited by our founders as given in the pages of scripture. YOU once claimed to read these scriptures and I believe you know deep down this senseless butchery won’t stop until our “Body Politic” can freely acknowledge the only law and law giver that matters as the GOD of heaven you and those like you have expended so much effort expelling from that very same “BODY POLITIC!”

26. Duggersd, the legal system is filled with “good ole boy” realities stories and you benefited from one of them, obviously.

    I do not “target the wrong people.” I just expose those who get to have their cake and eat it too, while others lie on the ground maimed or dead.

    Conservative political leaders in this country who tend to be the great protectors or apologists for gun rights in this country have over the last fifteen years, especially after they and all of us witnessed the tobacco industry being taken to the woodshed in recent years, created a socialistic reality for the gun industry. A reality, that allows the gun industry to exist with financial guarantees in what socialistic call “from the womb to the tomb,” but in the case of the gun industry their perpetuance gain never faces the inevitability of the tomb leaving that reality to the victims of the products the gun industry manufacturers and profits from….

27. There are a lot more factors involved in the breakdown of the American family than just fatherless boys.

    I am very tired of the bad rap single parents continually receive. Many of us have raised children who are now successful, contributing members of our society!

28. http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/10/05/family-of-oregon-shooting-victim-has-a-message-about-gun-control-and-the-second-amendment-none-of-us-have-changed-our-minds/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Firewire%20-%20HORIZON%2010-5-15%20FINAL&utm_term=FirewireFamily of Oregon

    Shooting Victim Has a Message About Gun Control and the Second Amendment: ‘None of Us Have Changed Our Minds’

    Oct. 5, 2015 8:56am Billy Hallowell

    The family of a teenager who was seriously injured during the Umpqua College shooting on Thursday said that, despite what she went through, they still oppose additional gun control measures and remain “pro-Second Amendment.”

    “We’re pro-Second Amendment, pro guns,” Jesse Fitzgerald, brother of attack victim Cheyeanne Fitzgerald, told the Daily Mail. “My sister, my mother, my whole family are all in favor. We were talking about it in the hospital and none of us have changed our minds.”

    Cheyeanne Fitzgerald, 16, lost one of her kidneys following Thursday’s attack and remains hospitalized. He said that, in the wake of the tragic rampage, his sister’s views have also not changed on the issue, the outlet reported.

    “We should have teachers trained in non-lethal ways to take people down. There is surely a way to defend kids at school,” said Jesse Fitzgerald. “Armed guards on campuses maybe.”

    As for his sister, who has a tough recovery ahead, he called for prayers and noted that his family setup a GoFundMe account to help raise $10,000 for her medical care; the account had already brought in $13,000 as of early Monday morning. Cheyeanne Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald had her kidney removed after being shot during a fatal shooting at Umpqua Community College on Thursday, Oct. 1, 2015.

    As the Daily Mail reported, the Fitzgeralds aren’t the ones to come out against additional gun control measures, as the family of Quinn Cooper, 18, who was killed during the attack at Umpqua College, also spoke out against using the incident to advance gun control.

    “We need to be able to protect ourselves as a community and as a nation,” the Cooper family said in a statement released after the shooting. “Please don’t let this horrible act of insanity become about who should or shouldn’t have a gun.”

29. Anonymous, you are absolutely right. Two of our last three presidents have come from broken homes with absentee fathers.

    Yet, they both went on to be the leader of the free world – one a Rhode Scholar, the other a Nobel Laureate and both graduates of Ivy League law schools.

30. Let’s see. That Rhode Scholar went on to rape at least one woman, sexually attack another and take advantage of an intern. And to my knowledge he does not deny it. Now, do you believe if he had a father in his life, he may have learned a better way to treat women?
    That Nobel Laureate has admitted to being a burnout during his high school years. Has ignored the Constitutional limits on his office. Is currently doing nothing while millions of Christians are being persecuted and has ordered the killing of more people than his predecessor. What a peaceful man! Perhaps if he had a father in his life he may have learned something about the right way to treat people.

31. Interesting, that is interesting, but it is also merely an empirical example. The Fitzgeralds and the Coopers have obviously suffered a great loss and their opinions are to be respected, but mean while the gun manufacturers laugh all the way to the bank.

    Duggersd, given your last comment, the obvious rebuttal to you is found innately within the common sense most will succumb to from negative reaction to your general and conspiratorial commentary.

32. http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/10/06/roseburg-obama-dont-stand-corpses-loved-ones/

    Roseburg to Obama: Don’t ‘Stand on the Corpses of Our Loved Ones’
    AP Photo
    The Associated Press

    by Lee Stranahan6 Oct 2015230

    David Jaques, the outspoken publisher of conservative paper The Roseburg Beacon, took to Fox News on Monday night to continue to make his case that President Obama is not welcome in Roseburg to push his anti-gun political agenda.

    Jaques told host Bill O’Reilly that the President wants to “stand on the corpses of our loved ones and make some kind of political point.”

    Jaques also said that elected officials, including Douglas County Comissioners, as well as the local Sheriff and Chief of Police, have urged the President not to use Roseburg to promote his political plans.

    On Monday, the White House announced that President Obama would be visiting Roseburg this coming Friday.

    Prior to his O’Reilly appearance, Jaques had made his case against the President’s visit in an exclusive interview with Breitbart News.

33. Winston, Hillary Clinton has said: Hillary Clinton said on Monday that victims of sexual assault have the “right to be believed.” So, we have the claims by Eileen Wellstone, Juanita Brodderick, Carolyn Moffett, Paula Corbin, Sandra Allen James, Christy Zercher, Kathleen Willey and possibly Elizabeth Ward. All have claimed an sexual assault or a rape. If one beleives Hillary Clinton means what she says, then she must believe these ladies. I do. Do you?
    As for our current President, he tells us about his drug use in high school. So, I really do not know where you are coming from. I notice you do not deny it. Do you?
    BTW, no conspiracy here, just the facts.

34. http://humanevents.com/2015/10/06/facts-dont-work-on-gun-control-so-obama-uses-emotion/?utm_source=hedaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl

    Facts Don’t Work on Gun Control, so Obama Uses Emotion

    David Limbaugh | Tuesday Oct 6, 2015 9:04 AM
    Facts Don’t Work on Gun Control, so Obama Uses Emotion

    In his speech on the Umpqua Community College shooting in Oregon last week, President Obama sounded more upset about America’s gun laws than about the horrific massacre.

    We barely had the preliminary facts about the shooting, the shooter and the victims, and he was already lecturing the nation again on gun control.

    Instead of calling the nation to prayer, he said we would learn about the victims in the coming days and then “wrap everyone who’s grieving with our prayers and our love.” Those words out of the way, he immediately pivoted to complaining that “our thoughts and prayers are not enough. It’s not enough. It does not capture the heartache and grief and anger that we should feel (or) prevent this carnage from being inflicted someplace else in America — next week or a couple of months from now.”

    We didn’t hear much “heartache and grief” in his speech, but his anger was palpable. It wasn’t anger at the shooter, and it wasn’t sympathy for the victims. It was outrage — or apparent outrage — at America’s Second Amendment advocates.

    “We are the only advanced country on earth,” said Obama, “that sees these kinds of mass shootings every few months. … The United States … is the one advanced nation on earth in which we do not have sufficient common-sense gun-safety laws — even in the face of repeated mass killings.” He said these events happen so often that they’ve “become routine. … We’ve become numb to this.”

    He may speak for himself, of course, but I don’t know too many people, especially gun rights advocates, who are numb to such savagery. Many of us believe our society would be safer against gun violence if there weren’t so many “gun-free” zones and if we had more armed guards.

    As he has so often done before the powder is dry after similar incidents, he used his bully pulpit (emphasis on “bully”) to misstate statistics as if he were trying for a record number of Pinnocchios from fact-checkers.

    He said: “We know that states with the most gun laws tend to have the fewest gun deaths. So the notion that gun laws don’t work — or just will make it harder for law-abiding citizens, and criminals will still get their guns — is not borne out by the evidence.”

    What he conveniently omitted is that Oregon had recently strengthened its laws on gun sales and is above average among the states on gun regulation. It is one of only 18 states that require universal background checks before the sale of any firearm.

    Being a proud Chicagoan, Obama is surely aware that his beloved city, which has distinguished itself in recent years for epic gun violence and death, is in a state that has some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation. How, then, can he claim that gun laws work? And how would implementing his idea of “common-sense gun-safety laws” make sense?

    Though the United States has a high actual number of fatalities from mass shootings given its larger population, Obama ignores that other nations — such as Norway, Finland, Slovakia, Israel and Switzerland, which all have restrictive gun laws — have higher ratios of such shootings per capita.

    The president also fails to acknowledge author John Lott’s findings as of 2010 that all the multiple-victim public shootings (where three or more were killed) in Western Europe and in the United States occurred where civilians were not allowed to carry guns.

    Charles C.W. Cooke, in his “The Conservatarian Manifesto,” urges that we regularly debunk “the claim that America is in the midst of a gun-violence ‘epidemic’. … Two reports, both released in May 2013, revealed a striking drop in gun crime over the past twenty years.” Cooke writes that “during the very period that gun laws have been dramatically liberalized across the whole country, gun crime has dropped substantially.”

    In his rant, Obama didn’t just distort the evidence. He effectively accused the Republican Congress of allowing these deaths by opposing gun control laws for political reasons, proving that projection is still an important weapon in his partisan arsenal. At a time when he should be using his office and his influence to urge healing and unity, Obama uses them for strident community organizing to advance his agenda.

    It is instructive that Obama rages at conservatives and scapegoats the weapons themselves rather than the criminals involved or the state of the human condition that underlies their actions.

    It is remarkable that he demands an unconstitutional and meaningless change in the laws purportedly to save innocent lives but vigorously opposes all laws that would protect innocent babies in the womb.

    And it is disgraceful that he seeks to inflame our emotions to seduce us into ignoring the facts and suspending our critical faculties long enough to surrender our vital Second Amendment rights.

35. duggersd, you just indicted your own source. On the one hand, Hillary Clinton is credible to you. Then you allege crimes against her husband, which if true, then why is she still married to him, if she is credible? Your own logical attempt with facts has checkmated you.

    Obama supports PP not 2nd amendment, to answer your concerns, well, the answer is federal legislation and not state legislation, that is why your Oregon and Chicago examples do not hold water.

    As far as the other countries mentioned, Israel is more a less a war zone or a haven for terrorism. Statistically, Finland and Switzerland actually have a higher per capital arming of its citizenry than the US which would explain their anomaly. In terms of Slovakia and Norway, well there are still 170+ other countries in the world with more restrictive laws on guns than the US and their numbers are lower.

    Speaking of Cooke, I have a quote from another Cook, which is my position on the 2nd Amendment and one our fore fathers meant or should we say was their “original intent” of the 2nd Amendment (a legal phrase many conservatives often like to invoke when discussing constitutional issues) before the NRA was allowed to rewrite the political narrative of this issue in the last half of the 20th century through now:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REuQckxrSrg

36. Oh, and I forgot to refute, Obama supports PP not 2nd amendment comments about gun-free zones and crime going down while gun laws were becoming more “liberalized.” The latter is easy to refute, all crimes (except mass tragedies) have being collapsing during that time frame because of our aging population.

    As far as the gun-free zone argument, well, these zones are also very populated and well known to the assailants most likely, which sadly makes it more inviting to them most likely.

    Enhancing concealed weapon rights everywhere might help in some cases if you are willing to ignore the collateral friendly fire and/or the complexity and destruction of the reasonable prudent person standard when it comes to vigilante justice, but why do we need to turn these gun-free zones into the OK Corral? Why not make them more like the gunfire zones of countries other than the US, Slovakia, Norway, Israel, Finland, and Switzerland?

    Roseburg, people have the right to their opinions, that does not mean they are right.

37. You see, Winston, that is the problem. Hillary Clinton only give lip-service. She will say anything to anybody–even fake a southern accent. You miss the point, however. Bill Clinton is a rapist. To my knowledge he has never denied it. He has settled with a cash settlement in a sexual harassment case in which he did what most would call sexual assault. The only denial he made was when he said he did not have sex with that lady. Again, a case of taking advantage of a young intern. Keep your head in the sand, Winston.

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