You can have a six shooter if, as you describe, you're honest folk. You just shouldn't be able to be Jared and have a six shooter. He might have been able to get his hands on one anyway but that doesn't mean society shouldn't at least try to put obstacles in the path of child killers. You must agree with that. And the example you use shouldn't mean we throw our hands up and say fuck it, everybody and everything is crooked so lets just open the flood gates.
To the exclusion of other means, no. Mental illness is being addressed, my opinion is that the control of certain types of pollution are directly related to that issue, eg. lead and mercury. Too much focus on mental illness concerns me, 1) because many behaviors we simply do not like are called "illness", ie. they are merely cultural definitions, and 2) efforts to reduce it necessarily mean greater attention to what's on a person's mind. I'd rather the focus was on their gun cabinet, if I had to choose. Again, I do not think making guns scarcer will eliminate criminal behavior. All a government needs to do is legislate and some behavior is now criminal.
As a liberal, do you believe we should remove certain civil liberties, you know, to make it harder on terrorists? I thought the left attacked Bush for years on this very premise. At what point do we stop removing the rights from all to stop a few?
Citizens of every political stripe seem hell-bent, for the past couple of decades that I've noticed, on safety over freedom. Is there a culture on this planet with more fear of death than us?
Generally speaking Ricter, those who have the most to lose, are the most fearful. That is the US in a nutshell. I don't see poor blacks on the south side of Chicago building fences around their mansions to keep people out do you?
I dont have the answers. There are already laws on the books covering everything concerning guns. A new law certainly isnt the answer. Wackos and crooks will procure weapons...period. How do you screen someone for an act they may commit in the future? Impossible. As tragic as random shootings are, and this is not to sound flip, they may be unavoidable. Just like getting creamed by some drunk driving the wrong way on the highway or buying a soda at the same moment the store the moment its getting held up or walking under a building and a damn piece of scafolding takes you out. How do you prescreen random tragedy? I do not know. But we should focus on the good people first and not strip rights for the sake of "capitalizing on a tragedy" The crooks and nuts will be dealt with..whether it be written or natural law.
thats how it should be. you should have "credentials" at least as far as your apptitude for judgement goes. I don't know what your'e for but I'm for protecting the lives of kids. Better screening and a limit on rounds. And Las Vegas Sands of course is a fly by night pink sheet issue. Mid Feb. then I'll eat crow or not.