I swear that one was on SVU... but, your observation about targeting violent people? Why not? They can use Google Analytics in many ways. Wouldn't surprise me. Which is why I made the comment about having a society which cares for its members rather than one which preys on them... the "Anything goes as long as we profit" thinking is beyond disgusting.

Your young relative needs more real world interaction. When we were young, I craved it... and that's the normal thing.

The process of socialization, disrupted by the gadgets is what produced normal people. Wait and see what you end up with now. If my parents found me playing a game where points were awarded for running people over, they'd have had me bundled up and in a shrink's office faster than the speed of light.

O tempore, O mores.

Oh, come on, Web...do you read what you write?  It is FEAR that has you wanting to own a gun.  That IS THE WHOLE POINT.

It's misplaced....its equivalent re cars would see you never driving on a road...or leaving your front door.

It's the same stupid reason your football players wear armour.... to protect themselves from the helmets they don't actually need.  Not statistically...grid iron is no more dangerous a contact sport than rugby...and they don't armour up.

No, you feel you need a gun because someone else has one and he MIGHT try to attack/rob you.  So, since you have one your neighbour thinks he must have one too... ad nauseum to the point everyone has one.  Then of course...like penises....yours HAS TO BE BIGGER so you can snuff out the supposed criminal and collateral damage will ensure you get his car...his family...and half his neighbourhood....just to be sure.

It's cause and effect...and yes you ARE conditioned to the premise you MUST have a gun to feel safe....simply because the MAJORITY of the inhabitants of this planet do NOT feel that at all.  It is specifically an American trait....inbred and inbued within your culture.

This gun culture has a by-product....the quite regular mass-killings by gun.  Just because you claim to be level-headed and sane does NOT guarantee you are a responsible gun owner.  Circumstances change.  One day you make a mistake and someone gets YOUR gun and does something you regret for an eternity.  Too late.

And it is NOT semantics to correct the statement 'right to own a gun'.  There IS NO 'right', and certainly NOT in that Constitution.

Guns? Who needs them...

Yes I do read what I write...and I don't live in fear. I've shot guns ever since I was a kid...so me having a gun was a by-product of my childhood and being around cops most of my young life. My step father was a police officer and we lived right next to a shooting range for about 6 years. I even taught how to handle a weapon on the "Police Athletic League." For me having a gun was second nature, a sport, and because I liked the power of the gun...each one is different...and no not in some machismo way. I learned everything I could about weapons and have a very healthy respect for them. There was never a "need' for a gun...it was just always there...nor do I feel some need to keep up with Jones'. And a lot of people I know who are still gun owners are the same way. And you would never know they owned so much as a bullet...they don't advertise it...if you went to their house you would never see a gun...they don't even talk about them...there is no fear. You guys are taking a few unhealthy unbalanced people...out of millions of gun owners...and painting them all with a brush of living in fear...being irresponsible nut jobs that somehow can't make a rational decision to buy a gun for reasons other than fear...I'm sorry Paul...but that just isn't so.

And now I'm starting to feel insulted here. Despite what you've been told or conditioned to think about Americans we are not all mindless dolts that can't make rational decisions and do it responsibly. If I ever decide to own a gun in the future it will not be out of fear...it will be because I want one or out of necessity.

Quite frankly I find all this fear mongering quite silly and reasons other people "think" I would own a gun ridiculous and hysterical. And at 6 ft 4 and 250 lbs I feel pretty safe...most people don't bother me and the ones that do don't for very long. And everything your claiming as the reason I would want a gun is way off base. I...do not...live...in fear...of anything. I never had a "need" for a gun...I've always felt quite safe. I am not conditioned like most of the masses are...I am not a lemming...I was a smart kid and saw what was happening with people being conditioned to do things a certain way and wanted nothing to do with it...I wanted to live life on my terms and continue doing that...I'm not brand label oriented...I don't buy things just because everyone else is doing it. I don't have a problem with guns...it's the people I have a problem with...but not in a way that I can't deal with it...I just ignore it.

And yes Paul...I am or at least I was a very extremely responsible gun owner (don't own a single gun now)...and despite what you may think I have no need to be waving my penis around to prove anything to anyone. I'm quite comfortable with who I am and what I'm capable of. And you can rest assured I will never be a pissed off postal worker or feel some need to take anger out on innocent civilians of any age, race, or gender.

And mass killings...they happen all over the world. Even in places with strict gun laws.

I don't have much to add to this discussion, other than I completely agree with anyone who said that the United States needs more mental health facilities and easier access to them.  I have no real opinion on the gun control and/or gun ban side of the issue, because I see a direct parallel when you apply that with the drug and/or substance abuse issue (which accounts for huge amounts of people killed in car accidents) -- "banning" something doesn't hit at the heart of the issue -- people who want to obtain banned items find a way of obtaining those items and the fact that they are banned means a whole other level of criminal element enters the equation because of the lucrativeness of dealing in banned items, and it punishes the people who legitimately own guns for either sport, protection or business (I lived in rural Kansas for a while and when you have to put your cow down or something like that, there isn't always a vet around to do it for you). 

The heart of the problem, as I see it, is a real lack of easy access to adequate mental health for ALL in this country.  If mental health were a basic human right, some of the stigma of seeking help would be eased; more people would be aware of what to look for in themselves and others.  As the parent of an adult child with psychiatric issues, I can tell you first hand about the nightmare trying to get help for your adult child can be!  "Free" care for indigents is nothing more than a dispensary for SSRI's which only address a small portion of the illness.  Getting actual therapy is impossible unless the patient is covered by an expensive insurance policy.  Even when it IS covered, it's usually just 6-8 visits, which is not enough to help someone who is seriously messed up. 

I cried MORE when I read this article than I did when I heard about the tragedy in Connecticut: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/16/i-am-adam-lanzas-mother-mental-illness-conversation_n_2311009.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular

Karen, read that this morning. Unbelievable. Poor woman. Poor child.

Giz... You grew up with guns, next to a shooting range, etc. but you weren't conditioned/desensitized to guns? Really? Never mind all the rest of the contradictions in what you wrote... just that one. 

That alone, Giz. Hour after hour, day after day, year after year you were were exposed to guns. I wasn't. Maybe because I went through a war and ER's and have used and seen guns the way I did, I feel the way I do, and the differences in our exposures to them account for the way we each feel.

I do think there should be a 28th Amendment: A really short one and really easy to understand one, though:

"The right of children to grow up shall not be abridged: This amendment supercedes the Second Amendment."

Can anyone tell me that the Second Amendment is more important than a child's right to grow up?

That's kind of melodramatic.  More children are killed in car accidents than by guns, (as vStyler mentioned much earlier in the thread) but we don't outlaw cars because of it.  In a just world, EVERY child would grow up, healthy, happy, loved, provided for -- but we don't live in a just world; there is no such thing as a just world.  Even if we got rid of every man-made danger to children, there would still be natural disasters like tsunamis that take out whole areas of the landscape with no regard for what age group happens to be residing there.

I grew up in a home that included gun owners.  My father (may he rest in peace), was an avid hunter, as was my brother.  I was not.  When my cat got her legs amputated by the next-door farmer's plow in the field across from our house and she came crawling back, I was spared the traumatic witnessing of that horror because my father and brother had guns and put Cocoa our of her misery before I was aware of it.  Sometimes the second amendment, in the hands of a wise parent MEANS that a child grows up -- I think pretty much all of us have either seen "Old Yellar" or at least know of the plot line.  A boy grows up, because he experiences an adult-life problem and has to deal with it like a man.  Most of us live in urban areas now and the need for that type of access to guns is diminished but not to the point that we need to abolish the second amendment. 

Come on Web, you're still not reading your own posts....

Karen....don't forget....even when you have to 'put down a cow' [and you don't have a cattle bolt] you won't need that AK-47 ....not unless you're a really pathetic shot....

Any miss-read 2nd Amendment doesn't justify the proliferation of automatic and semi automatic weapons.....even assuming it does condone private gun ownership.

Re 'putting down cattle'....mate of mine was pensioned out of the Police force after being TOLD by the RSPCA to shoot all the cattle in a truck at an RTA .... he wanted to get back to the station to grab a .22 ....they said no...do it with what you have...and that was a .38 and 7.62 rifle.  In an enclosed space his hearing was permanently damaged.

There are legitimate uses for firearms....but arming the majority of citizenry of a country is not one of them.

That's simply pathetic. Guns are designed ONLY TO KILL. Cars are designed to get people from A to point B. Melodramatic? I think not. It puts the proper light on this ridiculous argument.

Please read what I said about conditioning. Also, please read that I agreed that farmers and those who have to hunt for food for their tables should have rifles. Not AK-47's nor M-16's, 

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

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate

Those two tables....you can compare the US to AUS, for example....AUS has 1/6 the gun ownership rate and you are nine times LESS likely to be killed by one there.

Yes, the gun total doesn't take into account one person having multiples...but that same approximation would apply to either country.

Simple stats to determine which is the safer country...

Vehicular fatalities per capita aren't likely to be too dissimilar....road standards, etc are much alike.

There's also another interesting conclusion that can be made....as both countries have 'reasonable' gun-purchase restrictions...and both countries have similar societal 'issues' leading to abherent behaviour and/or mental illness....

....yep, you are 6 times more likely to come across a NUTTER with a gun in the US.

As someone who has played BOTH.. I can tell u from actual experience... NFL football is a more violent sport... if they played NFL football without armor, with the 2012 speed and power of the players...people would be dying all over the place... and really the two sports are completely different, played in different ways...and cannot be legitimately compared.

I'm British, i LOVE rugby.. but.. imo.. to play NFL rules football without protection wouldn't even be possible without serious injury in the league every single week.

Funny thing, but the only ex Rugby or Aussie rules players you EVER see in the NFL, are kickers. You don't see star athletes in Australian rules or Rugby coming to the States and making the 'easy money' in the NFL

I'm guessing.. you have never actually played American football Jafo.

Nah ....the US breeds enough grunts as it is to do the 'dumb' bit....but imports the peeps with actual skill....that can stick a ball where it's needed....

Curiously the US also checked out Brett Lee ...re rounders....er ...baseball ....cos he can just about bowl a ball faster than the average chucker can chuck one....

....and no, I don't play any ball games....I'm sadly endowed with too much intelligence to want to....

I just discussed the gun control/Connecticut massacre issue with my husband (crazy...I thought we had discussed every issue under the sun in the past 12 years) - his answer was brilliant.  We need to have police at every school.  He informed me that every Tulsa school entry is guarded by metal detectors and there's a branch of the Tulsa police specifically dedicated to Tulsa Public Schools.  Think about it...just about every public event we have in this country is guarded by armed security (football games, concerts, shopping malls, airports) - why shouldn't we be protecting our most vulnerable citizenry with as much zeal as we do those places?  Perhaps the amount of bullying that goes on in schools would decrease, as a side benefit, if schools were patrolled by armed guards.  It's brilliant!