@Sick

"And you don't hand a gun to a toddler either."

That would be the general reaction you get.

Your proposal is something that a few states have attempted to implement (MD for example) they just did it in such a way that if you had to get medicine for anxiety you would be banned from purchasing a gun forever. Which I believe to be unfair to collectors and hobbyists, and mostly everyone else too. I do think you messed up the order of your argument, by slipping the tool argument in there.

It might have been more effective if you had said "unstable people have the mental capacity of toddlers, and we don't give toddlers dangerous tools either."

On the side, earlier there was a link to an article on a church shooting and another article about an 80 year old man who saved himself because he was packing. THANK YOU SO MUCH ABC FOR REMOVING THEM! If commenting is really meant for open debate and discussion the ABC commenting system has really just unleashed a giant bucket of FAIL.

I would rather not get into some of the other writings that MIGHT have inspired a person or two to take action , and in some cases, lives were taken because of that action....hmmm...let's see...The Declaration of Independance ring a bell? How about the Bible? Not to be a big jerk, I just want to drive the point home that throughout history, people do the killing. They use whatever weapon they can find. In this case a few firearms were used. But as others have stated, it could have been a knife or a bomb or a lawndart. Don't draw conclusions about a population based on the acts of a few anomolies. It just isn't statistically correct!

New Law

If a doctor prescibes medicine for mental illness then he has to legally inform the police in the town of the patients residence. The person's name goes on a list of people unable to buy guns. To be removed from the list they need to contact the police and take a mental health exam.

Hey if tools don't kill why don't we hand chainsaws to toddlers ?

Tell me what's the difference in capacity to reason between a completely unstable person off their meds and a toddler.

So the founders expected every citizen to have a cannon?
I guess they also wanted to provide a caisson to carry all that shot with as well. The direct quote of the second amendment is "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." Pretty tough to "bear" a cannon!

How do you think wars get started? Someone signs off on it in most cases. Ever heard of "Mein Kampf"? How do people get the ideas that they do regarding religion? politics? Oh....just about anything under the sun gets written about. And...many times people write to inspire action. Good or bad, right or wrong, ideas are what cause actions and in most cases these ideas, are put to paper to be read by someone. Look past the "convenience" of obtaining a gun and start looking at the person who had the idea to do whatever it is he did. I may be thinking a little too "literally", (is that a word)? hah! But anyway the gist of it is that a person initiates action, not the object that gets used to perpetrate the action. You all have a right to express your opinion and that is why we love this country. But look, I'm writing my ideas down for someone to read. I consider myself lucky to live in a place where it is perfectly fine to do that.

""I dare say that, historically, more people have been put to death by the power of the pen/pencil then have been put to death by firearms."

Come again?"
**********************

I believe he was speaking about death sentences, contract kills, and the like. I am not arguing any of those points to either side because that's not my fight, so don't pick on me for it (getting it in beforehand).

Just change your wording from guns to "projectile weapons" because a crossbow, grenade launcher, lawn dart, and throwing knife (among others) kill people conveniently too. A flame thrower would do the job as well.

I stand by my argument that education would be a world of help. We hardly give any credence to teaching this kids how to live their lives. Instead we push them through a machine so they can pass test and move on to college to pass more tests. No one helps them deal with the stress of life, no one prepares them anymore. My school didn't have driver's ed, they didn't have shop, they didn't have home ec, they didn't even have anything on personal finance. Instead they all learned only the basic subjects. They barely learn anything about their civil rights either, if they did they might be a bit more ###### off when the government tries to give corporations the right to keep tabs on you.

Common sense is losing a lot of ground in this country.

Guns are convenient. And they afford the criminal a distance, or buffer, between themselves and the violence. Why is that so hard to understand? And guns DO kill people. I'm so sick of the "people kill people, not guns" argument. No, guns do kill people. You cannot assume that if the person didn't have a gun that they would find other means of killing a classroom full of people, or robbing a bank, or whatever else. Guns are unique among weapons for their convenience, their effectiveness and the buffer they allow.

"I dare say that, historically, more people have been put to death by the power of the pen/pencil then have been put to death by firearms."

Come again?

Of course not everyone should be packing heat, hell if there was only one person in a crowd holding when things went down you could resolve the situation faster.

Who says you need to shoot to kill either? What about wounding the person so they can not continue killing other people and get to go to court?

You can not blame the tool, if we were so worried about the tools with which people were killed we'd all be sitting in padded rooms for the rest of our lives.

Sure, make the laws stricter to obtain a gun if you need to, but that still doesn't mean people aren't going to go through back channels to get what they want. It could however keep some crazies from buying guns. But some crazies don't show it 24/7, sometimes they just snap.

Let's not be a fearful people, don't let the government take even more of your civil rights away because you're afraid. It's not the government's duty to protect you, YOU are you're number one priority, and YOU need to take care of YOU.

Education about your rights, about safety, and about common decency would go along way in this country. What ever happened to the classes in school that prepared you for life? Where'd they go? Instead we have schools clamoring to up their national test scores so they can get some more federal $$$ leaving all the children behind.

Oh, by the way, I don't own a gun.

If students at the college had been armed then there would have been a shootout rather than a massacre. We've tried that experiment before--it was called the Wild West, and the death tolls were appalling. The problem is a cultural one, and has nothing to do with guns. Common sense is among the highest of virtues, yet there is nothing in modern American cultures that encourages it. It's not cool, there's no "brand" associated with it, no bling-bling that can be shown off and lorded over others.

Some of you folks just don't get it!! The idiot who killed the people committed the crime, not the gun. HE KILLED THE PEOPLE! NOT...(everyone please pause to digest that)...NOT...(one more time, deep breaths)...the "GUN". Wrap your one sided minds around that thought and chew on it before you spew any more anti-gun BS. Furthermore, the "GLOCK" or the "SHOTGUN" didn't kill the people either. The DISTURBED IDIOT did! Of course everyone has become familiar with the term GLOCK because it has been glorified by the media and always called out by name if even remotely linked to a crime. This reminds me of the news-stories about the dreaded "SUV" that careened through the crowd killing people. Of course the drunken driver was just along for the ride. Again, why not place the responsibility on the individual and not on an object that, as far as I know, doesn't have a say in the matter. For what it's worth, I dare say that, historically, more people have been put to death by the power of the pen/pencil then have been put to death by firearms.

Funny how this happens right when the Supreme Court is having a big fight over the 2nd Amendment. And this is clearly one of those suspicious cases.
And those of you who think that no guns means no killing should see how unarmed Palistinians in Isreali controlled occupied territory are carrying out their mass murders. Last I checked you can get materials for explosives or incediarys at hardware stores and gas stations.
Sure we can go on being a mess of a society that we become and just blame guns because the former requires work and character - one thing nobody wants to do and the other thing few people are capable of after being raised on reality TV and video games.
MY guns will not be taken away by anybody because "somebody somewhere did something". Next time a geezer jumps a curb and runs a few people over lets pull the drivers licenses from all elderly. Next time a young mother with depression kills a kid lets send all CPS over to all young mothers diagnosed with depression and take their kids.
The state with the most restrictions even. You sheep just don't get it, and likely never will. But that's OK. You're sheep, and we expect that.

Yeah, students with guns in classrooms, that's the answer!

And no, it's not like blaming a pencil for a spelling error. Guns make it MUCH easier to kill people, en masse. Pencils put lead on a piece of paper. This is how detached from reality the pro-gun people are.

Wow, guns=cowardice. That is so unfortunate to know that our military in Iraq, Afghanistan, and all of our law enforcement are classed as being cowards. I, for one, believe cowardice is a choice. It doesn't take a weapon to make you one, but it may take a weapon to get rid of one.

blaming guns for killing is like blaming pencils for spelling errors. More people are killed by cars, cigarettes, and alcohol than guns. I don't see anybody calling people who use them cowards.

Well I was reading the news about the college shooter, then went over to ABC News on "entertainment" reading about the problems with the Spears family...and right above me is Jodie Foster pointing a gun straight at me. ABC is to blame for violence in USA!!! Violence is in your living room, on your computer. Big corporations make alot of money off you teaching you and your children how to kill. On the Whitehouse website is an article with Abe Lincoln as saying...war brings freedom. WELL PEOPLE! YOUR CURRENT PRESIDENT ALSO BELIEVES IN WAR. Are you MORE FREE today than when Lincoln led the USA? ALL MOVIES ARE MADE BY COLLEGE GRADS, EITHER THE WRITERS OR THE ACTORS. WHAT ARE YOU LEARNING AT SCHOOL?

if just one trained student had a firearm in that classroom or ALL the students had training and a firearm we wouldn't even be talking about this today.

Victim disarmament zones do not work. (well, they work pretty well for the shooter) one girly with a .38 could have taken him out quick. Guns save lives. No one had a gun but the killer. Thanks Government. Oh, and by the way, the founders had CANNONS in mind when they passed the 2nd amendment. The British had seized the colonists cannons and powder. takeawaypowder? How stupid. He would just use a bulldozer or gasoline fire and kill even MORE people if he didnt have a gun.

It’s the media’s job to report the news. This is a terrible incidence, but the media must talk about it. As far as a publicity stunt, the gunman took his own life, hence eliminating any attempt to view his act of violence.

You pro-gun people always say that if somebody had a gun there less people would have been hurt...well, that's never the case. Like ever. So, the hypotheticals you always resort to to make the case for keeping guns legal aren't really rooted in reality. Guns are legal, and this still happens. It's ridiculous and it's not about safety. It's about some morons just like to play with guns.

NRA and gun laws aside, there is another major factor the media seems to give way too much lip service to and that is these sick angry people want publicity. They want to cause pain first then they want the whole world to know why. Any news organization that puts the name, face and list of the perpetrators complaints out there for the world to see are giving them exactly what they want. You are intelligent people, why don't you get that???? I believe you (editors and producers) have a moral and ethical responsibility not to participate on that level. But of course, it's about ratings and dollars from advertisers, and as long as you package it as the "public's right to know" you're off the hook. Shame on you.

If Gun Ownership = Cowardice then
Free Speach = Cowardice as well. If you don't believe in all of the constitution, then you are a hypocrite. You can't just pick pieces of the constitution that you agree with.

Gun control is discrimination against women, the elderly, the disabled, and the weak.

1.3 women in the U.S. are forcibly raped each minute. This translates to 78 per hour, 1,871 per day or 683,000 per year.
Too bad none of those women had a gun.

This is because the liberal media for some reason equates gun ownership with backward behavior, so most women do not want to carry guns.

Gun laws should never prevent one of the protected classes above from carrying a gun--it should encourage it.

Gun laws are especially restrictive in Illinois. Which is why none of the 600 students had a gun. I lived in Hyde park for a while and moved to a different state, mostly because I couldn't carry a gun and had zero protection for my family. Say what you will, but that place is scary. Even go to the police database, there has been a violet crime on almost every corner in that area within the last 30 days.

Guns are a fact of life here in the USA. They cannot be done away with because criminals will not give them up no matter what laws are passed. Only the law abiding will give them up. If adult age students were allowed to carry a concealed handgun, imagine how many lives might have been saved here and at VA Tech?? It may sound extreme to some but these are extreme times.

Guns cannot protect you, it will only put problem.The only protection you need is jesus christ.

You think this dude had his FOID card? I still don't understand how someone in Illinois could actually CARRY these weapons. It's illegal. That should make it impossible, right? Not to mention the fact that he was in a GUN FREE ZONE. He was able to CARRY these weapons into a GUN FREE ZONE? How? I thought it was illegal. Aren't these laws supposed to stop people from doing this? Wait a minute... What if the students were allowed to CARRY a weapon? What would have happened then? Do you think someone might have been able to stop this maniac? Maybe so... Too late now. THANKS, ILLINOIS. THANKS, COMMON SENSE GUN LAWS. NO ONE WILL PROTECT YOU. ONLY YOU CAN PREVENT GUN VIOLENCE.