>>You are twice as likely to be killed by a baseball bat or hands and fists than with a firearm. 20x as many people are killed each year by medical errors than are killed with a firearm.

WTF? What is your source for this crap? Your NRA newsletter doesn't count.

I'm so sick of the "mental health" BS. Regular people should not be owning Bushmasters . PERIOD. Then there would be nothing for the mentally unstable to use to cause such carnage.

The simple fact is that the millions of guns that are so readily available in our country result in thousands of needless deaths every year - and the occasional tragic slaughter like we saw last week. If we could somehow wave a magic wand and make them all disappear the murder rate in the country would be significantly reduced. Just because we can't do that doesn't mean we shouldn't start talking about it. Maybe it will happen in 50 years. In the meantime, enjoy your right to own firearms, It it is an incredibility expensive "right".

OT -

Just as many, if not more, are killed in a car accident each year. Many by people who should not be driving. Does that mean we should blame & ban cars OT? Of course not.

The fact is, we have neglected the issue of mental health for far too long. Having said that, I'm all for closing the 'gun show loophole' and fixing the background check system which has been neglected far too long as well. For example, only 22 states report mental health issues to the NICS system.

Considering that the young man who committed the heinous act more than likely snapped because his Mom was on the verge of committing him, being serious about mental health issues and fixing the background check system should be priority 1 and 2 in that order.

Yes a lot of people die in car accidents. Because a lot of people drive (or are passengers) in cars, Your initial post was "you are twice as likely to be killed by a baseball bat or hands and fists". Was that statement just an NRA fantasy or are you going to defend it?

If the "young man's" mom had not had the guns in the first place there would have been no way for him to shoot up the school when he "snapped". A background check would have made zero difference since he stole the guns from his mother before he shot her in the head while she was sleeping. Please stop the BS.

OT -

Look up the data yourself as I did. I did err and say 'firearm'. What I meant to say was:

"You are twice as likely to be killed by a baseball bat or hands and fists than with a rifle/assault weapon. Gonna ban baseball bats?"

You can see the data for yourself here:

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2010/crime-in-the-u.s.-2010/tables/10tbl20.xls

Granted, the young man with severe violent tendencies should not have had access to guns (she had taken him to the range). If my child were like that, I would take our guns (including a Bushmaster) out of the house.

I did read a Clinton-era study of the 'assault weapons' (a made up word by the Statist/Leftists - as before 1989, the word didn't exist) ban which showed no statistically significant change in the murder rates with an 'assault weapon' during the ban. In fact, since the ban's expiration, both mass killings and murders by an 'assault weapon' are on the decline.

Via NRO (http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/335739/facts-about-mass-shootings-john-fund):

"A lengthy study by Mother Jones magazine found that at least 38 of the 61 mass shooters in the past three decades “displayed signs of mental health problems prior to the killings.” New York Times columnist David Brooks and Cornell Law School professor William Jacobson have both suggested that the ACLU-inspired laws that make it so difficult to intervene and identify potentially dangerous people should be loosened. “Will we address mental-health and educational-privacy laws, which instill fear of legal liability for reporting potentially violent mentally ill people to law enforcement?” asks Professor Jacobson. “I doubt it.”"

What a completely worthless post. What is your point?