On reading about another mass shooting, I'm thinking....

[goodgd_yall]

Guns should be made harder to get. The Feds should slap a big tax on them which will go towards financing our health care reform, just like ciggies are taxed.

[slackmaster]

1. So poor people won't be able to afford them

How regressive of you.

[east texas lib]

2. Yes, indeed.

Or is that repressive? Either works.

[goodgd_yall]

3. I'm willing to do anything that might cut down on a few

murders, suicides, accidents. Of course, it's not going to stop every one. Besides, the tax would help pay for the medical cost of shootings---you know those weekend ER visits.

[slackmaster]

4. How about better mental health care, tough sentences for parole violators...

...And world peace?

[aikoaiko]

5. nice.

[goodgd_yall]

6. How about

what you say and what I suggest?

[slackmaster]

10. I can't get past the part about imposing a hardship on poor people

Sorry, there are people who should be able to acquire firearms and people who shouldn't. The problem is figuring out which ones, and affluence or connections or fame shouldn't be involved in the decision. My suggestions would remove people who have proved that they are not trustworthy out of the system.

[cliffordu]

20. Yep. Mental health care.

[krispos42]

36. Really?

Then you support domestic warrantless wiretapping? Warrantless search-and-seizure? Indefinate detention with no access to the legal system? Torturous interrogations to extract information about other criminals or impending criminal acts?

[Caliman73]

42. Well then let raise takes on...

Cars, Alcohol, butter, french fries, Hospital stays, swimming pools, ladders, insects, and a host of other things because their use and interactions with those objects cause way more death and injury than firearms do. The above objects cost way more in health care dollars than firearms.

[spin]

31. That was the original idea of gun control...

In the seventeenth century, the aristocratic power structure of colonial Virginia found itself confronting a similar challenge from lower class whites. These poor whites resented how the men who controlled the government used that power to concentrate wealth into a small number of hands. These wealthy feeders at the government trough would have disarmed poor whites if they could, but the threat of both Indian and pirate attack made this impractical; for all white men "were armed and had to be armed..." Instead, blacks, who had occupied a poorly defined status between indentured servant and slave, were reduced to hereditary chattel slavery, so that poor whites could be economically advantaged, without the upper class having to give up its privileges. <37>

Today, the forces that push for gun control seem to be heavily (though not exclusively) allied with political factions that are committed to dramatic increases in taxation on the middle class. While it would be hyperbole to compare higher taxes on the middle class to the suffering and deprivation of sharecropping or slavery, the analogy of disarming those whom you wish to economically disadvantage, has a certain worrisome validity to it.
http://www.firearmsandliberty.com/cramer.racism.html

[Reform]

7. Placing taxes on guns is useless

Criminals will get them regardless, no matter what kind of law or tax you place on them.

[Telly Savalas]

18. Laws are useless.

No matter what laws you pass, criminals will break them.

We should quit trying.

[Caliman73]

43. Laws are not useless

But trying to fix laws that are not working to begin with by adding more and more useless laws is just stupid. How about trying to address the root causes of violence and crime? You do not modify behavior by banning an object. You modify behavior by example, by education, and by providing replacement behaviors. Mental health care, better jobs and hope for the future, treatment of substance abuse rather than just locking people up, those things will reduce violence.

Think about alcohol and Prohibition. Did outright banning alcohol stop people from drinking? That was a waste and created a bigger problem in really giving organized crime a shot in the arm.

[ORDagnabbit]

8. a responsible citizen with a CWP and Weapon would have brought it to a quick end

[wartrace]

9. I wonder if the center was a "gun free zone"?

Most mass shootings happen where guns are prohibited. Never heard of one at a shooting range...........

[cliffordu]

22. Really..."Man shot 2,497 times while attempting mass killing at gun range....."

:rofl:

[Euromutt]

35. In effect, it was

New York state law prohibits non-citizens from possessing deadly weapons (and makes it pretty damn difficult for people who are citizens), so the bulk of persons present could not have been armed legally. Chalk it down to another instance of government refusing to accept responsibility for protecting those under its charge while prohibiting them the means to defend themselves.

[RB TexLa]

11. Not this one. If my wife or other close family member were not in danger of being killed, I would

not touch my gun.

[ORDagnabbit]

13. thats why I used the term responsible.

[RB TexLa]

14. Because I would never use my gun to defend my own life I am not a responsible citizen?

[ORDagnabbit]

16. If you call yourself a citizen doesnt that term come with responsibilities to the care of your

fellow citizens?

[RB TexLa]

17. Not with lethal force it doesn't

[ORDagnabbit]

19. you'd be okay standing there doing nothing knowing you can stop a massacre? That doesnt sound

realistic or responsible.

[RB TexLa]

24. No way I ever use my gun to protect my own life. Will never happen.

[ORDagnabbit]

26. okay...and you wont use it to protect others. why do you have this gun?

[cliffordu]

27. That's a very interesting question.....

[RB TexLa]

29. I'll protect my family with it. It's not like I'm stopping the other people from having their own

gun. Nor would I attempt to make decisions for when they choose to use or not use it.

[ORDagnabbit]

30. you cant protect your family if you get killed.

as always to each his own but your logic is odd.

you're in the middle of the beginning of a massacre you have a firearm on you that can be used responsibly to end the madness, save lives and most importantly protect your family by killing the murderer and not getting killed yourself

[Iktomiwicasa]

38. Why would you not

defend yourself? Do you not value your own life?

[cliffordu]

23. Nice. You'd have fit in PERFECTLY at Luby's

[RB TexLa]

25. I know a guy who shot and killed someone, he was totally within his rights, there was nothing

immoral, illegal or unethical about what he did. Yet his life has been a living hell every day since it happened. No way I risk living my life like that.

I'd defend my wife's life or a close family member's but not my own. No way, it is not worth it.

[derby378]

12. We do not tax voting, free speech, or the right to a jury trial

It is dangerous to assert that all Constitutional rights are equal, but some rights are more equal than others.

[imdjh]

40. +1

[Statistical]

15. There is a 10% excise tax on all firearms and ammo.

So more taxes?

Self defense is only a right for the rich.

Economic Darwanism. If you can't afford protection then likely you are genetically inferior so letting you die is Gods way of cleaning up the gene pool?

[Gator_Matt]

21. There are millions of guns in this country

If someone is determined to carry out a mass shooting, they'll find a way to obtain firearms, legal or otherwise. I'm not sure what good stricter control would do in this case considering the sheer number of weapons out there.

[undeterred]

28. Guns should not be sold to men.

Its always men who go on shooting sprees of human beings.

[spin]

32. Jennifer San Marco is one exception...

Just after 9 p.m. on Jan. 30, 2006, Jennifer San Marco passed through a heavily guarded security station in a mail processing plant and distribution center in Goleta, Calif., by driving behind another vehicle to enter the building where she had worked two years earlier. No one realized that she had just killed her former neighbor, Beverly Graham, with a shot to the head in her apartment. They apparently also did not realize that she was armed with a 15-round, 9mm Smith & Wesson pistol and ammunition.

At gunpoint, San Marco took an employee's badge, according to early news reports. The 44-year-old then shot two people in the parking lot before entering the building to shoot four more before she turned the gun on herself, taking her own life. Five died at the location from their wounds and the sixth person died two days later in the hospital. Since San Marco had left behind no suicide note, her motives remain in question.
http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/notorious_murders/mass/female_mass_murderer/1.html

[RamboLiberal]

33. I can think of two other women spree killers with guns

One was either Eastern or Central PA who went to a shopping center with a rifle. Another was I believe in California where a young female shot children at or on their way to school from her house.

On edit:

The Cleveland Elementary School shooting was a school shooting that occurred on January 29, 1979 in San Diego, California. The gunwoman, 16-year-old Brenda Ann Spencer (born 3 April 1962), fired at students from her house across the street from Cleveland Elementary School. During the shooting, two people were killed, and nine others were injured.

The school was across the street from Spencer's house, from which she fired the shots. She used a rifle that she had recently been given for her sixteenth birthday by her father. During the shooting, she killed school principal Burton Wragg and head custodian Michael Suchar. She also injured nine others, eight students and one police officer. When the six-hour incident ended and she was asked whom she wanted to shoot, she said, "I like red and blue jackets". When asked why, she shrugged and replied, "I DON'T LIKE MONDAYS. This livens up the day."<1> She also said, "I had no reason for it, and it was just a lot of fun"; "It was just like shooting ducks in a pond"' and " looked like a herd of cows standing around; it was really easy pickings."

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

[slackmaster]

34. Wrong

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

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

[Furyataurus]

37. I think we should also

slap more taxes on DL's and State Inspections, Vehicle Registration, and add a $2000 tax on every vehicle sold whether new or used to help more with the health care reform. :sarcasm:

[imdjh]

39. Do you have any idea what it takes to own a gun?

Gun - (something you would want) $250-$500
Concealed carry class - $100
CC license - $90
_______________________________
so it's about $600 to get started

It take three days to buy a gun and about three months to get the license

In Florida

[guardian]

41. Maybe you'd like this

>>>>Guns should be made harder to get.

The following would meet your definition. Maybe you'd like it if the only people that can legally own guns are

* male
* land owners
* over 21
* white

Maybe you'd like that?