As a public school teacher I am seriously considering resigning at the end of this year. The shootings have really made me think twice about this profession and the lack of support I deal with in too many capacities. The standardized testing, the behavior management, and now a concern for my safety are all areas where I work almost entirely alone. This is part of the deconstruction of public schools by our new administration, especially Nancy DeVos.
1
One issue that I haven't seen come up is that of states that have slackened gun laws. In New Hampshire, Gov. Chris Sununu last year signed into law a provision that anyone can carry a concealed gun without a permit. This is the kind of horrific, backward thinking and action that is contributing to potential murders, and a light should shine on every politician who does something this damaging.
We moved to NH after our children were raised. I would NEVER raise children in this awful gun environment here, and families should not relocate here as chances for someone being shot, or children murdered in schools, are likely higher than in states with more control of guns. Startups should avoid NH.
Even as police, whom we endanger more with vicious laws like New Hampshire's, protested, a big crowd cheered Gov. Sununu as he signed his law. Viewed in the optic of news of murdered children, they make quite a sight. Sununu is a proud active member of the NRA.
http://www.concordmonitor.com/sununu-signs-conceal-carry-bill-8252381
2
Are guns in America are more sacred that freedom of speech? One can't move to restrict access to a gun or assault weapons. But people are punished financially, economically, and socially if they say something controversial.
Waves of gun violence have not matured society's behaviour. My god, how does one console the victims? Trying to empathize with a parent whose child was shot to death is like trying to thinking about the end of everything. My brain can't go there for more than a few seconds.
Some members of Congress are shooting survivors, too. One would think that that shared experience would make them more likely to listen to their fellow survivors. But they still seem to be politicians first, survivors second.
Power on, students. We are with you, even if Congress isn't listening (yet).
2
Those politicians (on both sides of the aisle) who have supported/and support the NRA are on record. Their day of defeat is coming. And the voices of the students will bring them down. It's not about mental illness (which the Reagan era eviscerated Federal funding for), it is about THE GUNS. Who needs an AR-15? As a brave Florida student just said, "How many kids would have been killed by a knife?"
I remember, as a child, when the NRA was a positive movement, about gun safety and hunting rules. Now it is the unholy alliance of guns and money. And don't let anyone tell you different.
2
Don’t stop covering the kids.
5
We need to turn NRA into a dirty word like the republicans did with liberal. Members of the NRA should be scorned in public.
2
If the Head boy & Head girl were also Prefects & Head of their Houses this would have been prevented. Viz: NewIf the Head boy & Head girl were also Prefects & Head of their Houses this would have been prevented. Viz: New York Military Academy York Military Academy
The kids are raising money for the March on Washington! Help them out.
https://www.gofundme.com/8psm8-march-for-our-lives
2
How cowardly Congress--Emma Gonzalez, a Parkland HS student is speaking out alone. Where are Senators and Congressmen-letting a girl take lightning rod strikes. What are you getting paid for=worthless.
5
From Newtown to Orlando to Las Vegas to Parkland only 5 men killed scores of people. 25(?) at Newtown, (49) at Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, (58) at Route 51 festival in Las Vegas, (27?) Texas church, and (17) at the high school in Parkland. Roughly 176 people killed by 5 men. Tell me guns aren't the problem when 176 young children and adults are dead because of one man with an AR-15. Congress should be ashamed and the NRA has nothing but blood on its hands.
5
Yes, Mr. Trump, we believe you now with your lies. What will your background check consist of, thorough checking of anyone not white? Or left handed 500 pound pirates from Somalia? Your are the most disingenuous and dislike man in the world. Not a badge of honor.
2
We need to ban terrorist organizations that are responsible for taking American lives. The one such organization that has the most blood on its hands is the NRA. BAN THE NRA!
2
We are devolving.
As a world, as a civilization. We are devolving, it's true.
The stress of survival, technology, unmitigated population growth and climate change....it's just the beginning of our end, and it will end.
This won't stop regardless of laws we pass. We all kind of know that in the back of our minds and we are very depressed about it as we should be.
Solution: More armed good guys than bad guys.
It is much more popular to focus on the laws and regulations that we don't have rather than those at State and Federal goverments often fail to apply.
Would this have occurred if mass shooting tips had been followed. How is it that Police were involved 39 times and he could legally but a gun. Was there not a single domestic volance crime that would have disqualified him from gun ownership. He apparent was very transparent about his fund.
We need to follow the laws and regulations we do have in that they may have actually saved 17 lives.
The immediate government solution is for government to do its job. Remember the air force veteran who never got in the database?
A good percentage of mass shootings involve failures of the system that might have prevented them.
1
Not that you'll care. What with it only being dead kids, but Florida law deliberately made it impossible to take this poor fool's guns away.
Congrats on what you helped to bring to pass.
1
Young people are now strongly protesting the slaughter of gun violence and mass -shooting atrocities. They staged lie-ins in front of the White House and elsewhere earlier today.
These kids are the future, unlike the old white guys who lovingly cradle their guns.
That old rural gun culture is fading. Most young people are uninterested is such an inconvenient, expensive, and irrational pastime.
4
We are becoming no better than Iraq, Syria, or Afghanistan. Instead of bombs killing innocent people it's high powered rifles.
I challenge any politician to call this what it is, domestic terrorism.
2
If people have to do more than just vote, look to the right wing for inspiration. Look how the right wing protests and demonizes Planned Parenthood. The same tactics can be used on NRA facilities. Enlarged pictures of victims. Constant protests, regardless of how few people, at their facilities. The same for any politician that supports the NRA. Every single member of the NRA. There are no responsible members of the NRA. The sane ones all left. Everyone of these people are toxic and should be shamed out of public existence into the shadows where they belong.
2
I was very sorry to hear about the shooting in the Florida school. The school district failed to protect those students from a past bully. The NRA failed us by allowing stricter gun laws against automatic weapons. The GOP failed us twice first by allowing the NRA to fill their pockets with money not to change and second by denying mental health plans with any of there proposed health care plans or making them unaffordable for all Americans. I hope and pray the march in Washington, D.C. will bring results we can be proud of.
2
How about the parents whose children have been killed by random violence in our inner-cities for decades and whose children killed by the random violence in the Middle East, e.g., Iraq and Afghanistan, as a result of our wars, our bullets, bombs, and rockets?
No "cameras" for them, though, but still "the parents are left in a wilderness of heartbreak. They do not know how to plan a funeral, where to get a therapist."
Where were these same parents when those children--"acceptable collateral damage"--were being killed at random?
2
You are right. Dead children are dead children everywhere. You can't help anybody by dropping bombs on them. Let's get our own house in order before we tell others how to clean theirs.
The least we can do is start at home and as a nation make a concerted effort to stop participating in all these wars. Let's address and fix our mass shootings once and for all.
1
It is tireseome seeing right-wingers endlessly claim that "inner-city" by which they mean "black people and President Obama," do not cae about this, and have not tried to change things.
YOU stood in the way. And it is despicable to see the bigoted, the fearful, the willfully ignorant, adopt an anti-war song aimed at a War the b, f and w.i. stuck this country with, by way of phony criticism.
Thanks, Rusty Calley. Thanks, Ollie North.
1
The plight of these families is truly moving; they have been transformed by tragedy. What I wonder about, however, are the families where guns remain accepted and normalized. After his mother died, Nikolas Cruz first went to live with a relative, but she was uncomfortable with the guns he brought into her home. Eventually, he moved into the home of a friend's parents, James and Kimberly Snead. Gun owners themselves, the Sneads accepted Nikolas and his guns, although they did require Nikolas to purchase a lockable storage box for them. Mr. Snead thought he had the only key, but sadly, he was mistaken.
The Sneads are generous people who reached out to a young man in need -- they saw first hand Nikolas' depression and tried to help him. Still, their immersion in a culture of guns meant they had few qualms about bringing into their home weapons which Nikolas saw as integral to his identity. Indeed, Nikolas had seemingly prioritized the acquisition of guns over another teenage rite of passage: getting a drivers license. For those of us on the outside of gun culture, this acceptance of Nikolas is difficult to imagine. It requires viewing guns mostly as a means of recreation; going to the gun range as no different than playing tennis or soccer. Nikolas has since reminded James and Kimberly Snead of the basic lethality of guns. What will they do with the ones they still own? That is the question for basically kind, generous and thoughtful gun owners all over America.
4
Prayers give solace. Thoughts convey respect. Talk creates fervour. VOTES create change. If America you want meaningful change to your unique (nowhere else in the world) and chilling access to firearms VOTE in your mid-terms.
3
All of these loosely knit organizations need to coalesce into or around a national cohesive movement/organization. Why not a million man/woman march on Washington? Why not an ongoing sustained confrontations with Congressmen wed to the NRA and gun industry. Why not a national call to repeal the product liability legislation Congress passed to protect gun manufacturers from product liability that all other manufacturers must be subject to?
2
Tom Steyer should spend a week's worth of advertising to list all the members of Congress including Trump who have received financial support from the NRA and the amounts received. Expose those that support domestic terrorism and add it the reasons for impeachment.
3
Can we take a look at the failure of Florida's social services?
Or any state law that allows a person under 21 to purchase any firearm?
1
The incessant use of the word "tragedy" by both the media and the public makes one thing very clear: we think of these routine massacres as we do natural disasters or freak accidents -- unavoidable, unsolvable, with no one truly at fault, a risk we simply live with.
Otherwise, we would label these events what they are: "atrocities" or, at the very least, "crimes."
3
I think of the all of the politicians' failures in regard to gun control to be like a giant cancer that grows every time their failures lead to more deaths. Other people call it karma. Whatever it is, it's eventually going to catch up to them and bite them where it hurts most. Sooner rather than later, I hope, but it's inevitable.
5
Support from the President? Not so much. Trump decided to informally 'poll' his customers at Mar-A-Lago this weekend to see if he should support some kind of gun control legislation.
I can not think of a more callous and dismissive gesture by a President to the families and community of survivors of the 17 high school children and adults killed not even 1 week ago.
That Trump would think this kind of attitude and behavior acceptable is yet another new LOW for this horrible man. Lack of respect and empathy do not begin to describe the fetid depths of that man's soul.
6
His bar can always sink lower.
4
We would be better off, should this clown start drinking.
Why does congress have metal detectors? If they are such huge supporters of gun rights, then they shouldn't be afraid. I think children boycotting schools is an excellent idea. I'm ready to home school if necessary. Ridiculous that our children are less safe than these gun-loving politicians. Sacrificial lambs to the NRA-agenda. Shame.
3
I’m here in LA too and teach at a LAUSD public school. After some school shooting a while ago the District in order to look like it was doing something put security guards with them in all the schools who would go around and do random scans of kids. Whatever kid they picked would get a nice certificate to go home to the parents telling them their kids were clean. I haven’t seen any of those detectors around since in can’t remember when.
All members of Congress should have the same security provided for every public and private school student in the United States - no more - no less.
Let their families experience the same gut wrenching stress worrying about them when they go off to work each day.
The Second Amendment clearly says that you can keep arms as long as you are part of an organized militia. Not only that, it also says, in its 18th Century way of saying things, that it is only to the extent that said organized militia is necessary for the security of the state, that militia membership grants you the right to bear arms. None of these requirements are satisfied today - militias don`t exist, and they are not necessary for the security of the state.
Of course, the Second Amendment is written in the style of 18th Century English, where the use of grammatical ellipses was common, and where pronouns were used differently than they are today.
Still, it is baffling how the Second Amendment text got to be interpreted as a unqualified right to carry guns, when it clearly states two qualifications are needed, a) you are part of an organized militia, and b) such a militia is needed for the security of the state. Essentially, this means the Second Amendment is no longer relevant.
The ridiculous misreading of the Second Amendment that leaves out the qualifiers either means fans of the Second Amendment don`t understand the English Language, or they are lying on a massive scale. Something tells me the latter is closer to the truth.
4
Congratulations, to bear arms is also a constitutionally protected individual right of every American.
After becoming more appreciative of just how untrustworthy the swamp is, these days, I'm guessing the chance of successful change in altering the status quo is nil. That's right, zip, zero, nada.
President Trump, here's what you can do to MAGA. Start by demanding a bill calling for new Presidential elections within 3 months, closely monitored to ensure it's integrity. If you win, then you can really claim you won, fair and square. You can promote whatever agenda you want then. However, if you lose and you will big time, you will resign and take that empty suit Pence with you, never to be heard from again. Mr. President, we triple dare you to do this, but you won't because it will be the most lopsided election ever in history and you will lose big time. Go ahead, tough guy.
3
Happy Presidents Day. Be nice to actually have one.
Just saying.
6
Republicans have blocked every piece of sensible gun control legislation. They have the blood of our school children on their hands. Period.
6
Some years ago my thirteen year old son was in his middle school locker room when another boy took a loaded revolver out of his gym bag and pointed it at my son's head. Then the boy laughed and put it away. My son and others notified the school authorities and the boy's locker was searched . They found the loaded gun and a large quantity of ammunition.
He had brought it to school because of his anger at some other kids. The gun and bullets had been stolen from his mother. The police arrived, the boy was expelled, taken to a youth center and, fortunately nobody was killed. Several rounds had been fired into a nearby park where children often play. The boy's mother was so upset because her son was carted off by the police that she promised him a new pair of cowboy boots.
If something so traumatic, as a near shooting, has not happened to your child, lucky in this instance, you cannot imagine holding them in your arms while they sobbed their heart out...this kid of mine who never usually cried at all. It has taken all this time for me to tell this story; a story that failed to made it into the papers. The school district hushed it up.
A big bravo to all those children and adults that are taking a strong stand for gun control. I know that I will be marching on March 24th.
5
Trump's Great America = possibility of children getting shot with" legal automatic weapons"
Trump's Great America = using healthcare for children as political blackmail.
Trump's Great America = stock market doing well.
Trump" well you win some, what's more important" Everyone knows I'm a smart genius businessman! I did have a number of bankruptcies, and I did give my rich friends huuugeee tax cuts, and children being shot at schools. But I gotta keep NRA happy. They are my kind of guys . Shame on you Trump and GOP.
1
We should elect the Parkland students to run congress. They have far more experience (at least with gun violence) and intelligence than the corrupt cadre that is there now.
3
Students and other amateurs were running government but that agenda was put in check forever.
Yes, they should stop the anti-gun nonsense and work to do something that might actually stop madmen and terrorists from killing our kids. Arm the teachers. Arm the security guard at the entrance. Take the big "gun free zone" target off the backs of our kids!
My condolenses to the families and friends who lost love ones in the shootings. It is time that America moves to the next era from the Civil War practices, because the 2nd Amendment did not account for general gun safety issues. It is not anyone's constitutional right to use weapon's of war in civilian life. Should you like to hunt, attend to sports competitions like biathalon or target practice yourself, the single-shot guns are just fine. No reason to tear up the animals in the woods with semi-automatic high-power rifles.
1
The question that needs to be asked as often as possible is why is the United States the only first world country with these kind of mass shooting statistics.
They should be asking everyone on TV and in print this question.
1
People who befriend victims for the primary purpose of recruiting them to the gun control cause offer sympathy of questionable sincerity in return for political commitment. I have canvassed people on behalf of Democratic candidates. I do not lure them with personal sympathy and I am straightforward about my purpose. Those who use personal tragedy and the attendant vulnerability to advance their political cause are disgusting to me.
This heart wrenching tragedy and the ones preceding it are, more than anything else, the result of greed. The gun and ammunition business is very profitable. There is a lot of blood money to spread around among legislators on the state an national level. The NRA is the conduit for a lot of this. An "A " NRA rating for a president or a legislator should become a badge of shame - money for innocent lives lost.
To the young people in Parkland Florida and through out the United States who have suffered such tragedies, thank you for your strong voices. You have my support and blessings as I know you have from here and around the world. Your losses are shared by us in our hearts. Bless all of you, we will draw off each others strength.
1
If secular sainthood were possible, I imagine parents like Nicole Hockley, who've lost children in mass shooting like Sandy Hook, would be candidates for canonization. It is inconceivable how, in the face of the most profound personal tragedy, parents like Hockley have soldiered on, year after year, welcoming new members into this unfortunate fold while patiently dealing with cretinous politicians who disavow all evidence of the ongoing gun violence that plagues our communities as they literally step over the bodies of the dead with evasive rhetoric, obstructionism and persistent political inaction. Why common sense justice to protect kids - all of us, in fact - from wanton gun violence has become such a weary pilgrimage is beyond understanding, but I now grow certain of one thing: there is going to be a reckoning. Ms. Hockley, to be effective, must go beyond anger. But the rest of us are hardly in a saintly mood.
1
I'm not convinced anything will change unless the Democrats flip congress. Does anyone really believe the Ayn Rand wannabe who is currently Speaker of the House will allow a gun restriction vote? He's demonstrated a stunning lack of empathy for the predicaments of others be they disabled, unemployed or lacking health insurance, as it is not the role of government to get involved. Mr. Ryan, rather than the overwhelming and insincere concern that you have for everyone's grandchildren regarding the national debt, try showing some concern for children in the here and now.
1
Since it is clear that for several years now, far too many American adults feel a tax cut is more important than making America a more compassionate, inclusive and safer society, it would seem now that the future of the country has no real alternative but to be firmly placed in the hands of its youth. After all these tragedies of whom the bulk were younger people. they have clearly decided and determined rightly so, that the adults, especially those in government, have failed miserably in these areas and massive changes are needed.
The fact of the matter is, In the last Presidential election, Bernie Sanders stirred the emotions of a younger generation who felt they were being ignored and adults dismissed as a passing fancy and they will gradually get over it. Younger people have decided that through no fault of their own, far too many were continuously and needlessly having their lives cut short and it seems now, they have finally had enough.
I would say now to many of the adults, forget the political ideology and start making the changes NOW by electing people whom are not beholden to lobbyists and corporate donors that ultimately dictate the agenda, if not, GET OUT OF THE WAY.
1
It seems clear that the federal background check system as it currently exists is unsatisfactory. No one understands how someone like Cruz with his history was able to purchase a gun legally. Rectifying this would mean including more information—expanding what counts as derogatory information—about potential buyers.
To be fair, this isn’t really about guns.
It’s about money and power.
And the belief that loss of life is acceptable in trying to satisfy insatiable greed.
What I don't understand is how all of these GOP cow tow to the NRA. I read testerday that the NRA spent something like 55 million dollars. That's not a lot in this day and age. The gun control crowd could throw double that.
So, it's their ability to organize and scare people.
These kids have shown the sort of good sense, back bone and willingness to save their lives and those of their peers. May I commend you. Your power is coming. Most of you will be eligible to vote in a few short years. For now, encourage your friends or siblings, who are now eligible, to vote for their baby brothers and sisters and friends safety. Tell your parents something needs to be done - NOW!
1
Specific to school violence the cause is multifaceted therefore the appropriate and rational approach to a solution must also be multi-action.
1 identify and profile school troublemakers
2 enforce mandatory engagement of law enforcement and counselors
3 ban gun access to school troublemakers with parental liability
4 train,arm and compensate specific school employees
4
Also:
1. Follow protocol on tips.
2. Charge for crimes so legal ownership can be blocked. Weren't the police called 39 times including for abuse of the mother?
3. Enforce the laws we have.
It has been said that Only Nixon could open the door to China many years ago. In an ironic but true fashion, although I am not a fan of him, I believe that Only the President like Donald Trump could reverse this trend of gun insanity in this country. Let's hope!
America has to still come to grips with a very important but rather simple fact, one that was pointed out in an in-depth article in the NYT just a couple of days ago. The countless studies on this subject over the years are unanimous. and despite all the hand wringing about dealing with mental health, violent video games and movies, etc. etc., when a country has 4.4 percent of the population, yet, over 42 percent of the worlds firearms in private hands, that is the primary reason, why compared to the other industrialized democracies, Americas mass killing numbers and gun homicides are off the chart. Overall, Americans are no more violent than anyone else in those other countries in the studies. It boils down to the number of guns and the ease of access to them, bottom line.
To the surprise of many Americans, as a Canadian, I can actually purchase an AR15, however, I have to jump through numerous hoops to acquire it, a thorough background check is done and I have to take an intensive training course in which case, the weapon would be used primarily in a firing range and not kept at ones residence. The NRA propaganda of telling everyone that guns would be banned are just that, lies and propaganda. It is just common sense.
We can all do one little thing today (or tomorrow). Divest your investments out of funds that include weapon manufacturers. We did it years ago and thought it would be a problem. Our financial adviser said no problem-- there are many like us. Talk to your financial adviser. Let's not profit or allow manufacturers to increase their profit off these deaths.
Every time there's a major shooting rampage at a school or other public venue, there's an outpouring of emotion from those affected and (alleged) sympathy from those in government. And after a few months, a year, the agitation dies down, until the next shooting.
I have heard some of the Parkland students speaking about their plans to change the situation, and I hope they persist. And even more, I hope they are able to convince those in power that the right to own a semiautomatic weapon is not a right guaranteed by the US constitution, but a perversion of that constitution. As far as I know,
I am not optimistic that they will change the situation. But I hope the students and their parents prove me wrong.
It is very good to see that something may begin to happen in the war on escalating gun ownership in the US. Finally families of the victims may be taken seriously. As an aside at the same time that it takes so much violence and needless loss of life to make an impression on Trump and the Republican Party, we read that there was an uproar in the parking lot at Mar a Lago over a concealed gun brought to the property by a "legal" owner of a firearm. For some reason it is allowed to carry guns in just about every state now in the US, in someone's pocket, but the President is accorded special protections that he then refuses to grant citizens. No wonder there is so much distrust and division in the US, the division that has been so stunningly taken advantage of by Russia...yes, we air our dirty laundry for the world to see it, and with a President who prefers twitter to real conversation and policy making, one who rants nearly weekly on some "presumed slight against himself" (again not against average American citizens) those divisions must appear as the gaping wounds that they are, with those who dislike Trump and his posturing on the opposing side...so what was to stop the Russians from their meddling and obstruction. And God help us deal with what is to come for the remained of this farcical administration. Instead of elections which are merely barbarous with calm after the storm, now we have this as our daily bread.
5
18 years old to vote. The age of most high school seniors.
Historically, young people this age do not even register.
Election 2018 is 8 months away.
Marches and protests are cathartic, but only elections can change the laws.
Oh, please register and vote to change this horror.
10
This support system for the families of victims killed and injured is the real support that bereaved, stunned families need. They are not even aware of ail the noise and drama whirling around them in the aftermath. This support is what the families need when they begin to fathom the bottomless depth of their loss, when they become aware of the permanent hole in their lives.
But I wish there was no need of this support group, no need for families to cope with such cruelty, no senseless massacres by psychopaths like the Lanzas, Cruzs and politicians with blood on their hands and above all no Second Amendment that allow GUNS. These Lanzas and Cruzs are no better than the ISIS.
5
We are wounded in communities we are healed in communities, by good people reaching out and helping one another. No one would wish such horrors on anyone but---it proves that goodness, helpfulness, support and kindness are available to us.
3
I am so inspired by the young people of Stoneman Douglas who have the courage to speak up. At the same time they are trying to cope with the trauma of what they experienced. It is my hope they continue to speak up, and graduate to adult leadership positions. We need more voices of reason. Generations ago our country sent kids overseas to die in a war and return in body bags. Today, too many are sent to school only to die or be traumatized by preventable circumstances.
27
As a grieving parent myself, I wonder at the fact that this article doesn't mention The Compassionate Friends, a national organization specifically formed to support parents who have lost a child. With many support groups across the country, they have helped my husband and I to bear the grief by sharing with others who understand our loss. Only another parent who has lost a child can understand what we experience. Losing a child is the worst of all losses, the greatest tragedy known to mankind.
3
I fear that 2018 is sadly going to be "the year" we changed. Like the effects of a horrible spreading virus, a country awash in guns is going to watch as the out of control militia eats its young. The gun nuts will be gun nuts no matter how many families get torn up.
I'm terribly pessimistic as the awful turn we the people will be taking this year unfolds. A National Day of Outrage by the kids of our country will be needed as another 100, 200, or 300 young souls are taken away by a gun crazed zealot pretending to be Dirty Harry in the dark recesses of his brain.
The GOP hypocrites, it seems, will only act when their own is taken away as they are safely in their bubbles, their campaign coffers enriched by blood money. What will do it? Two or three Senators killed by gunfire? Clearly the deaths of schoolchildren isn't enough to move the Marco Rubio's of this nation into action. he and they have been paid very well to do nothing except wring their hands and offer prayers.
I watch as this mess unfolds like a horror film, but the faces of the victims are little kids huddled in a gym.
8
It looks to me that Steve Scalise getting shot has only made Congress even more paralyzed by the gun cult.
Ban. Assault. Weapons. Period.
8
Wikipedia's Listing of U. S. Mass Shootings:
Las Vegas shooting 2017, 59 (w/the perp) Semi-automatic rifles
Orlando nightclub shooting 2016, 50 (w/the perp), Semi-automatic rifle
Virginia Tech shooting 2007, 33 (w/the perp), Handguns
Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting 2012, 28 (including the perp) Semi-automatic rifle and bolt-action rifle
Sutherland Springs church shooting 2017, 27 (w/the perp) Semi-automatic rifle
Luby's shooting 1991, 24 (w/the perp) Handguns
San Ysidro McDonald's massacre 1984, 22 (w/the perp) Multiple weapons
University of Texas tower shooting 1966, 18 (w/the perp) Multiple weapons
Stoneman Douglas High School shooting 2018, 17 Semi-automatic rifle
San Bernardino attack 2015, 16 (w/both perps) Semi-automatic rifles
Edmond post office shooting 1986, 15 (w/the perp) Handguns
Columbine High School massacre 1999, 15 (w/both perps) Multiple weapons
Binghamton shootings 2009, 14 (w/the perp) Handguns
Camden shootings 1949, 13 Handgun
Wilkes-Barre shootings 1982, 13 Semi-automatic rifle
Fort Hood shooting 2009, 13 Handguns
Washington Navy Yard shooting 2013, 13 (w/the perp) Shotgun and handgun
Aurora shooting 2012, 12 Multiple weapons
Geneva County massacre 2009, 11 (w/the perp) Multiple weapons
GMAC shootings 1990, 10 (including the perp) Semi-automatic rifle
Atlanta shootings 1999, 10 (w/the perp) Handguns
Red Lake shootings 2005, 10 (w/the perp) Multiple weapons
Umpqua Community College shooting 2015, 10 (w/the perp) Handgun
5
I just reviewed those incidents using the WiKipedia information. More than a third of the shooters served in the military. Two others wanted to join the military and others had significant military influence by being in a military family. Some were bullied, excessively.
1
It interesting to read and hear the students who were the victims of this terrible shooting going after Donald Trump's for his unbelievably tone-deaf twitter rage attacking the FBI for missing the signs of Cruz's intent and tying it into the ongoing investigation of his campaign ties with Russia and Russia's interference with the election.
I notice these extremely intelligent young people have been very articulate and critical of Trump, I wonder if he is going to proceed and get in twitter fights with the victims and teenagers as he has done with other critical comments of him on twitter.
8
Trump is younger than they are in mental age.
Election Day, 2018 is around the corner. Watch out members of Congress. Many, many, teens who are 17 today will be 18 by then. Watch out members of Congress. Many, many, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends won't forget the horror of the student killings. They'll vote too. Watch out, they are all coming for you.
The presidential election is around the corner. Watch out Donald Trump. Many, many, many, teens will be 18 by then. Many, many, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and friends won't forget the horror of the student killings. They'll vote too. Watch out, they are all coming for you.
Members of Congress. Watch out, I won't forget either. I am coming for you. I, too, will vote you out.
Donald Trump, ARE YOU LISTENING? Watch out, I won't forget either. I am coming for you. I, too, will vote you out.
12
I pledge never to vote for any politician supported by NRA.
10
Good, Kali. I agree. Here is a website that makes it very easy to search to see exactly how much, if any, money your congressmen took from the NRA: https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/toprecips.php?id=D000000082&cycle=2016
Me too.
1
I see that it still needs to be pointed out that the reason for an assault weapons ban is pretty simple: these weapons were designed to be light, easy to shoot, to allow a shooter to carry a lot of ammo, to be easily reloaded, and to put out a heck of a lot of bullets very quickly.
I'm not sure it would be possible to deliberately design a better weapon for killing a lot of schoolkids.
Oh, and Michael Crichton Was Right about guns: they hand you a lot of power very quickly, they require very little training, and accordingly they require next to nothing by way of discipline.
We so often hear that the bad guys will just use a knife or a bomb, if they can't get an AR. Beyond simply pointing out THAT THEY DON'T, they use an assault weapon or a fancy semi-auto pistol and a lot of ammo, it might be useful to consider that there aren't really a lot of examples of a whacked-put kid killing seventeen people with a knife.
Oh, and if you think you're just gonna go buy a ton of dynamite or fertilizer whenever you feel like it, think again.
9
In order to make a purchase at a gun store, a person has to fill out a form. One of the questions, on the form, asks, “Have you ever been adjudicated as a mental defective OR have you ever been committed to a mental institution?”
This is an insulting way of asking about mental health. No one wants to consider himself a “mental defective”. In addition, people who have received this designation may be unaware of it.
And many people who have not been adjudicated as a mental defective do have mental health issues which could preclude them from owning a gun.
The form should ask if the person has ever had a mental health issue (including a problem with drugs or alcohol or a designation on the autistic spectrum), and if so, to please explain what it was. Then social service workers should investigate and interview the person before it is decided whether or not he is fit to purchase a weapon.
While this could take awhile and would cost money, it would save lives.
3
I would go further. The government should have screening offices with psychiatrists who do the evaluations necessary to obtain a gun. If anyone lies about their personal info or past, they could do jail time.
This is beyond absurd. People do not need 15 guns in their home. If they do, isn’t that a troubling sign of their judgement and mental health?
7
Or they could just lie about it. A national database covering all states and territories will work.
About this form.... I know the answer that is needed to get a gun.
Why would I answer it any other way? It is just a form.
As for checking, not everyone has a record.
1
If you have any, or know of any, motivated high school students who want to actively make a change have them contact their local registrar of voters and find out how they can register students at their school to vote. If there is a supportive administration at their school the process should be strongly encouraged and facilitated. Only then will real change occur. It is time to seriously resist and remove the obscene influence the NRA has over spineless politicians.
15
Yes, a student and parent movement for gun laws!
Women have taken charge of promoting their safety. Why not children and parents, for theirs!
Yes, NYT, keep it in the headlines.
12
Tom Steyer should spend a weeks worth of advertising to list all the members of congress including Trump who have received financial support from the NRA and the amounts received. Exposed those that support domestic terrorism and tie it to impeachment.
12
If the Russians have the power to tilt the balance of power here, certainly one of our own could find a way too.
4
Please give us information :how can we join and help the Anti-Gun movement.
6
School shootings happen in the U.S and Americans fight over gun-control and mental-health services; decades of bombing, invasions, occupations and murdering millions overseas and Americans fight over who supports the veterans/troops more.
The problem is not gun laws, the problem is that you're a sick society that promotes and glorifies murderers on every occasion and in every aspect of your life including the military on sports-fields, military recruitments in schools, and military pictures in grocery stores and also they brainwash Americans with the video games like Grand Theft Auto and the military games. Can't you people see it you are being used for the empire.
10
The media's lack of focus on the reality that young white males are by far the most likely to arm themselves and perpetrate these school, theatre, shopping mall, and church murders disappoints. Even adjusting for mental illness, what is it in these young white males' culture that is leading them to price life at nothing?
10
More guns do not make us safer. Concealed carry in schools is ludicrous; don't make teachers jail guards. Weapons of mass destruction have no place in the hands of civilians and must be outlawed. And, the NRA must be labelled a terrorist organization.
11
I read these stories with my own permanent wound once again ripped open. My wife and I also belong to the 'Club That No One Wants to Belong To' albeit under different circumstances (our 21-year old Son died on February 21, 2008 from an undiagnosed sepsis infection. He left our home that morning supposedly with a bad case of the flu, and was gone 13 hours later). The members of this 'club' include all parents that have lost a child no matter the circumstances and each of those parents also feel the horror and pain that the parents in Florida are now going through. The stories however never address the greatest horror of all for the parents and that is seeing the body of your dead child for the first time. It is searing pain that burns a hole in your heart and mind that time will never close. I want the parents to know that while thoughts and prayers have become meaningless for many, I do say a prayer for their strength to endure what comes ahead, offer advice to lean on your family and friends for support and the love from someone who understands, somewhat, how their lives have been destroyed and must now be rebuilt.
8
Perhaps prior to purchasing an assault weapon, you should be required to spend 6 months living in Afghanistan or Somalia or Syria. See what everybody having an assault weapon is really like.
12
Did 45 or his wife, mother of young son, visit the Morgue or look at autopsy photos. Or did they run back to Mara Lago to a dinner when they asked their "guests" if there should be gun reform? I think you know the answer. I'm pretty certain that President Obama visited the morgue at Newtown. I'm pretty sure it must have been the single thing that most affected him and will for all his years.
9
no, they went to a "disco" party.
Tragic that we have such a system in place. It's a sign of how common this has become and that is even more tragic. No child should have to go to school wondering if this is the day she will be shot or killed. No parent should kiss his child good bye in the morning and wonder if this same child will be home and in one piece that night. The same applies to people going about their daily business. And no matter what the NRA says, a good person with a gun cannot always stop a bad person with a gun.
We thought that Sandy Hook would force our politicians to listen to us. They simply mouthed platitudes and did nothing. We thought that other shootings, even more senseless would lead to reform. Nothing was done unless the shooter was an immigrant: then the GOP and our current president turned on the divisive rhetoric button. I hope that the death of these 17 people in Parkland will be the tipping point in terms of outrage and disgust at the NRA and the lily livered politicians who court it for support.
No one is trying to roll back the Second Amendment. All we want is to know that we're safe in our daily lives, that our children, families, and friends are safe. No civilian needs to own a semi-automatic like an AR-15. Hunting and practicing at a shooting range is one thing. But owning a weapon that can kill numerous people in seconds is another form of terror and ought to be treated as such by our politicians.
10
It might be a mistake to focus exclusively on politicians when trying to change guns laws, especially given that Americans have access to courts which have often done an excellent job of holding police, and the cities that employ them, to account for negligence.
All victims and survivors may be able to seek damages, which in turn will spur legislators to tighten gun controls and ensure a proper response of authorities to gun complaints.
1
Below just a quick piece pulled from Wikipedia. One of the Aurora theater shooting victim's parents are liable for the gun shop's legal fees, to the tune of $200,000.
It is disgusting that gun manufacturers and sellers are protected from lawsuits by our bought and paid for congress.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protection_of_Lawful_Commerce_in_Arms_Act
Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act
Dismissed suits[edit]
In 2010, the United States Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal in Ileto v. Glock, ending a lawsuit against Glock by the family of victims in the Los Angeles Jewish Community Center shooting.[18]
The Brady Center and families of victims of the 2012 Aurora shooting sued Lucky Gunner, the online store where some of the ammunition was purchased. Federal judge Richard Paul Matsch dismissed the charges.[19][20] He ordered the plaintiffs to pay Lucky Gunner's legal fees under a separate Colorado law, HB 000-208.[21]
In October 2016, a Connecticut Superior Court judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by the families of some victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting against the manufacturer, the wholesale distributor, and the retailer of the semi-automatic rifle used in the shooting. Judge Barbara Bellis ruled that the suit "falls squarely within the broad immunity" provided to gun manufacturers and dealers by the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act.[22] The Connecticut Supreme Court is considering the case.
Many of us gave up hope of any needed changes when nothing was done after Sandy Hook. The stats comparing other countries to ours, support the need for gun safety laws. Even states who have adopted stricter gun laws are showing a decrease in deaths by firearms.
But without the support of our representatives who give us only their "thoughts and prayers" things cannot change. It will change only when it becomes repugnant and socially unacceptable for a U.S. politician to have an A+ rating from the NRA. And even then, it make take a generation or two to rid ourselves of many of the almost 300,000,000 guns in the U.S.
5
Idea: every high school student in America walks out and refuses to go back to school until there is legislation limiting automatic weapon, bump stocks, etc. and dealing with these gun-hording men (irregardless of mental health but including mental health).
That will get things done!
6
I have enormous respect for these families who have suffered these losses and found the strength to extend themselves to others grieving. They are an inspiration to us no matter the tragedies we endure.
3
Useless wishing to think Trump is able to respond to this or any crisis. We all, however, should demand that each elected official throughout the country be required together in session to sit and view the Parkland crime scene photos of the victims...and they should not rush through the gore.
5
Most of us can only imagine the shock, heartbreak and rage these kids feel. We see the news reports and are stunned, broken-hearted and angry, but though we all try to change things, nothing real happens and we all give up.
These kids, now affected by a monstrous act of violence, are doing the right thing and the only thing left for us to do: real gun control and restrictions on ammunition, mental health screening and the public acting on things they see and hear.
If the NRA remains an obstacle, if the GOP puts profits and power before the safety of our people and innocent children, they will be detritus as we mow through them.
This time, things are going to change. Let this be the last time innocent children and those defending them are gone too soon by a completely preventable act of mass murder.
Get ready for the anti-gun control propaganda to start. There is an article in today's USA today that says there were not 18 school shootings in the last 46 days. Some were accidental discharges. Some did not kill or wound anyone.
So I ask you this: Is is okay with you that guns are allowed on school grounds in any circumstance? Not me. It is ludicrous that we have to even have this conversation.
GET GUNS OFF THE STREETS AND PUBLIC PLACES OF AMERICA. NOW.
I was shocked to learn that one private supposedly "christian" school is auctioning off guns for their school fundraiser. They may be "rethinking" it in light of the mass murder at a neighboring high school. Boggles the mind.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/02/16/parkland-school-shooti...
7
Facts remain important. Not that the NRA or El Maximum Presidente care about facts.
2
What a sad commentary on the state of our nation.
When the only action is from survivors, why are we paying Congress?
51
We are rapidly headed backwards while the rest of the world moves forward. We elected a President who vowed to take us back to the good old days of the wild west and he is succeeding.
4
A lot of sympathy,meetings etc when these shootings occur.There is only one way to put a stop to assault rifles killing people.With the midterm elections coming up a simple yes or no question to the politician,will you vote to ban sale and production of rapid fire military style weapons.No more weaseling,parsing the question or studying the problem.YES or NO
4
Ask your representatives about their stance on gun control. In November vote accordingly. NOBODY needs an assault rifle. Time's up on this issue too.
3
Maybe one reason so few people understand is because the media is complicit in sanitizing its news coverage. These survivors would not be exhausted in their advocacy if you would use photojournalism to say what words cannot. Photos of hugging family members is no different than coverage of a tornado. They make these shootings seem inevitable, when they are not. Where are the photos of what is actually happening? These are military grade weapons being used on civilians. Where are your wartime photo journalists? Where are the photos of dead children in pews and classrooms? Remember the two photos that brought the Vietnam war into every living room? Remember when Emmett Till's mother decided to hold an open casket funeral so the violence and depravity of lynching could be indelibly engraved in Americans' minds? Or the photo of the dead Syrian boy on the beach in the Mediterranean? Do your job and bring these images to the forefront of the American psyche. Show us the carnage, so the public and politicians can see what the gun industry and their lobbying shills have wrought. You have the power and the moral imperative to shift the national conversation and lift the burden from survivors alone.
7
I wonder if the NRA could be sued for negligence in this case because they funded the gun club at the high school where Nikolas Cruz learned how to shoot. Were it not for this NRA funding, Nikolas Cruz may not have been able to carry out his massacre. Because of this funding, the NRA bears some responsibility for this massacre.
5
I believe Congress enacted laws that protect gun manufacturers from civil and/or criminal liability...
2
Yes, but the NRA is not a gun manufacturer.
There is no gun club at that school. There is JROTC though. They may have gun shooting.
"Well regulated militia " does not mean folks can own an arsenal!
We've always had guns amongst us, we didn't have massacres at high schools until Columbine. Why? Assault weapons. Which no hunter needs to kill a buck in the woods or meadows!
We, the People must rise up, get the vote out (which mean talking to every eligible voter you know to go vote! ) and let's vote OUT of office each and every NRA owned politician!
1
Here in NYC we have a similar organization called "Families for Safe Streets." It is for individuals who have lost loved ones or been injured in traffic crashes.
https://www.transalt.org/familiesforsafestreets
3
If trump stood up and did the right, morally correct thing with regard to proper regulation of the militia, I would actually forgive him for virtually all of his misdeeds to this point.
But he wont. The dark side has taken him and the rest of the GOP over. Women and mothers with small children need to understand what is at stake in November 2018. It's really life or death. Get out the vote.
7
All the navel gazing.
The one and only question is when and how should this kid have been removed from the general population.
All this discussion about guns is going nowhere for the simple reason law abiding people want the ability to protect themselves.
It has nothing to do with actually using guns.
The mental satisfaction of knowing you can deal with criminals means more than anything.
Guns have always been around. They were never a problem before.
The same with houses. People did not even lock them.
What has changed is the lax attitude about treating criminals.
Civil liberties taken to extremes actually kill people.
Law abiding people find defense with guns schizoid and infantile. They are inherently offensive and escalate tensions even as props on a stage set.
I want the law to leave no ambiguity about anyone's right to shoot anyone else under any circumstances. It is illegal, and there is no good reason to equip yourself to do it outside of some professional capacity as a guard or police officer.
3
All evidence to virtually everything you've written says you're wrong. But thanks for playing.
5
I'm sure that it's mere coinkydink that school shootings and mass murders started spiking after Republicans halted government research, let the Assault Weapons Ban lapse, and started attacking gun control laws.
It also has had nothing, nay nothing, how can anybody think such a thing, hey never, nothing to do with more and more right-wingers waving guns and muttering about taking "their," country back.
2
Bottom line: Only when Florida elects Democrats across the board will there be meaningful changes to protect school children from gun violence.
And, except for the issue of addressing what to do with this one favorite high power weapon, most of the changes would not involve guns at all.
Changes to the Florida (and county) child social service agencies that repeatedly let this shooter fall through the cracks.
Changes to the Broward County sheriff's department that ignored repeated warnings about this guy.
Changes to evacuation and lock down procedures at schools. It has been reported the kids did everything they were instructed and trained to do in an emergency, yet that led them right into the killer.
Only Democrats can fix this problem of mass shootings (which declined 43% in CT after Newtown.)
3
People who do have guns need to stop talking like mass shooter wannabes themselves. Who knows which one of you is the real Waldo the Mass Shooter amidst all your blustering babble?
3
One suggested solution to the mass shooting carnage problem is to explicitly work with knowledgeable folk (the NRA has many) to increase the availability of firearms that can work well for target shooting, hunting, and home defense, without promoting those fitting the description of devices designed for killing large numbers of under cover soldiers or children in corridors. Formally there is no barrier to doing this. We have decided as a society that machine guns and RPGs can be limited, as well as hand grenades, claymores and biological and radiological weapons. Here are a few suggestions from a non-expert. Small bore, low velocity, very long rifles for accurate target shooting. Larger bore, single shot rifles (30.06) for hunting, semiautomatic should not be encouraged. Two shot shotguns for home defense. An expert panel should be able to do far better than these simple suggestions. We need to decide as a nation that young men using high velocity, semi-automatic, military weapons to explode watermelons is not a high priority.
Since the "unalienable" right to life is the fundamental right without which ball other rights are merely academic, it is altogether fitting and proper that the students' marches planned for March 24th in every city in the land kick off every American student's refusal to return to their classrooms until safety has been restored by the passage of effective gun control legislation, including the banning and collection of every AR-15 military-style weapon in the nation.
7
I see an army of young people, particularly high school students, mobilizing to make gun control a reality. Finally. You go kids!
81
That army is also shooting other students. This will be the most successful shooting ever. What better way to agitate for action than to kill some children.
Don't act so shocked. It happens. There are people in the world evil enough to do such a thing. Dylann Roof said he wanted to start a race war.
It was largely young people who organized and protested in the 1960's and 1970's for civil rights and an end to the Vietnam War. We should welcome this activism.
4
Tom
I realized that too just yesterday. Except they wrote better music back then, protest songs. I don't think Taylor Swift could write anything like 'For What It's Worth'.
This time around the kids are being manipulated.
1
You people live in states that idolize gun ownership and ignore the violence that its promotes. Or you live in states that are unable to see the connection between your social attitudes, the paranoia that it promotes, the solution to arm with guns whose sole purpose is to kill other people and the violence that ultimately results.
I don't live there. And I would not want to. If you don't like it, you should do something about it.
Hey. Buying more guns is absolutely a possibility. Good luck.
2
Who can even imagine the pain of losing a child to thus insanity - to see them leave for school in the morning, never to return.
And, at the root of all of this is money.
Life needs to be about more than money.
GOP = Greed Over People
7
People ought to apply the logic of Pascal's wager to guns. The thrills are trivial and cheap. The spills are bottomless and immeasurably costly.
3
The really sad deal is that, in this country (the only one), there has to be a support group for the families of murdered kids. Even sadder, membership keeps growing. Shameful.
8
I see folks are still trying the "arm all the teachers...good guy with a gun," trick.
Beyond suggesting that boy howdy, do YOU need to meet some teachers, two teeny quibbles appear:
1. Do you have any evidence at all of a mass shooting being stopped by a civilan? The closest I'm aware of happened in Texas: a very experienced NRA instructor shot the gunman AFTER he killed a bunch of people in a church.
2. Speaking of experience, just how many people do you know who you'd trust to be shooting back in a crowd of panicked schoolkids (or anybody else!), against a shooter who loooked like everybody else and was in the middle of a bunch of people trying to get out of there?
It might be good to look up the stats on how many times trained cops hit who they're shooting at.
Then we can get to the question of what they'd be armed with. Handguns? Against an assault rifle with a 30-round magazine?
There's a total of ONE cop who brought that off: a heroic RCMP sergeant (and firearms instructor!) with thirty years of experience.
I really get tired of guys who go to a weekend "combat handgunning," ranch, and declare themselves Deadeye Dick.
11
Some people are calling for removing the 2nd amendment to OUR U.S. Constitution, which is very difficult and the beginning of some serious meddling in what has worked for nearly 300 years.
I suggest we add the following to the 2nd Amendment:
EVERY GUN in the United States of America and it's territories/property must be REGISTERED on a national database, state LICENSED and fully insured for liability.
Just like cars.
This would cut down significantly on the number of guns owned in OUR United States of America and would allow law enforcement to more rapidly find the origin of guns used in crime.
Manufacturers already track every single weapon, bullet, accessory and part so they can keep track of inventory - and profit. States are already set up for fishing/hunting/auto licensing - just add guns. Insurers will need to decide how big a person's arsenal can be and charge accordingly.
The stick - $5,000 fine for every weapon that is not licensed.
NOW is the time. OUR lawmakers have not been asking for enough and the piecemeal legislation by state is ineffective. Robber Baron operatives are already in the process of trying to pass national gun laws that make it EASIER to kill us and our loved ones.
This must not stand in OUR United States of America. We and our loved ones have a right to live without the threat of being gunned down in schools and other public places.
4
Since nothing is being done on the federal level, what if states took up this issue? Surely, there is enough support in several states to ban military style assault weapons, require stricter background checks, and prevent teenagers from buying guns. If enough states start to enact these laws, it would put pressure on other states to join. Just as with gay marriage, enough states would eventually join and change would happen at the national level.
27
Ms. Schermerhorn, state laws are ineffective against this deadly infection of OUR civil society. We need national laws that hold teeth and are seriously enforced with watchdog groups and government employees holding gun owners accountable.
The Robber Barons can do it to try to deport dreamers. WE THE PEOPLE must DEMAND that Socially Conscious Women and Men we elect will create one serious, effective national law.
2
Sherry, As you know a big problem has been leakage into states with tough gun laws from states with lax or no gun laws. This is particularly a problem for small, easily concealed weapons like handguns. Smuggling military weapons is harder and so state level bans may be more effective than handgun bans.
Ive been reading the comments by people on the one major conservative news website, lets call it the other side of the debate, and ive seen many comments blaming liberals, democrats, Obama, everyone and everything but the actual problem. I encourage people who care about this issue to see what the other side is saying and maybe try and engage in some productive debate. Ive found that when you make a reasonable comment, other people chime in with better comments as well. It shifts the conversation.
3
Get real. These folks argue right past us at their own projected straw-men.
3
Is there going to be a point at which you call for the average Trumpist to shaddap for five minites and maybe try to see OUR point of view?
Since when is there a one-way valve on paying attention?
1
The good people of Florida must mobilize to remove the Republican Party
lawmakers and current governor from power in their state, all of whom have worked overtime for the NRA in order to enact "no gun control laws" whatsoever. These lawmakers have taken public safety and common sense out of the equation all in the name of profit. It's time for the people, all of us, to use the power of our vote and remove those politicians that stand with the NRA.
6
If school children were to boycott and not go to school because they did not feel safe.until effective gun laws were enacted the politicians would be under great pressure to act. Semi-auto rifles holding more than ten rounds are used for target shooting, ok, but they should be under lock and key at shooting clubs, signed out to their owners and turned in after the shooting session ends. In the military rifles are under lock and key except when under use for training or legitamet purposes and ammo is strictly accounted for except in war zones.
2
Everyone involved and touched by this school shooting needs a victory. I suggest a voluntary gun surrender. The police would organize it, and I'm sure the police and social services and even the FBI would be happy to oblige, for obvious reasons. A voluntary gun surrender should be totally anonymous: no questions asked and promises that the guns would be "melted down," never to be used again. There are thousands of people living uncomfortably with guns in their houses and troubled men. Providing an opportunity to give up the weapons is a good first start, a possible saving of a life or many lives, and a victory without legislation.
5
One wiki check==gun laws by state. South is lax on guns and it is noted everywhere online. There is no mystery here Congress. Do you job or quit...
4
1. Gun manufacturers, the NRA, and the government ALL have to take responsibility for ALL of the mass shootings that have occurred and will continue to occur without major reform to gun acquisition and ownership laws. Find a way to hit them where it hurts - in the wallet - for it is ALL of their greed that has perpetuated tragedy upon tragedy and nary a consequence imposed.
2. Making schools safer by installing metal detectors and police presence is tantamount to incarcerating children (and teachers), and is not a solution.
3. Student's and parents should boycott state sponsored "listening sessions". These are staged political performances that offer no tangible benefit or solution to survivors or victims friends and families.
4. When school kids are savvy enough to call BS when they hear it, then it's time for elected officials to stop shoveling it.
REPEAL THE SECOND AMENDMENT
11
These projectionists (projectilists?) always deflect to hold someone else responsible for the consequences of their own actions.
2
The voters of Florida put Trump and the GOP in power, and they got what they voted for. Trump and his friends murdered their children for money. They will continue to do so until and unless the voters of Florida figure it out and take action to protect themselves.
7
In a state full of retirees, an executive crook takes Medicare for $2 billion and gets elected governor after returning half of it. They sure are gluttons for punishment in Florida. Will they elect Rick Scott to the Senate next?
4
Florida governor Rick Scott’s placing the blame for this tragic event solely on the FBI is insulting to the victims and their families. Mr. Scott’s resistance to gun safety laws is the real issue.
It is analogous to Mr. Scott (and the State legislature) releasing thousands of rabid dogs onto the streets and then blaming an animal control employee if someone were bit.
In a couple of years high school students who survive these tragic events are going to be old enought to vote and remove gun supporters like Mr. Scott from office, unless of course the Republican Party finds a way to suppress their votes.
81
It is my fervent hope that in a few years, the high school students who survive these tragic events are going to be old enough to run for office.
To those who are working to prevent mass shootings and to help survivors and the families of victims:
Stay strong and know that you are doing one of the most important things in the world. You are a beacon to us all.
2
Most certainly guns do not kill, people do. I get it. A paint brush is not the artist, a piano is not the composer. Certainly nobody is arguing this. People feel the need to have some means of self protection. One thing a gun does not provide is a chance to change your mind once the trigger is pulled. Some people have a bad day and snap. And when that gun is handy and loaded, rage and retribution can distort the options and magnify the urgency. I have lost 2 good friends to murder, both by the hand of someone taking perceived retribution with a gun. I personally have had enough. By themselves, guns are just another rock... rocks can also be used to kill. A rock was likely the first weapon. It is certainly the person where responsibility rests. But the ease of pulling a trigger and the flawed and overwhelming perception of the finality achieved and the release of the devils rage is intoxicating to many who are weak in spirit or morals. I agree with this pro-gun argument "Gins don't kill, people kill". So I would say that stricter and more frequent background checks, psychological background checks, social association checks, etc., may be in order... you see where this is going? Lets get rid of semi-automatics to begin with and see what happens to our nations statistical world dominance of mass murders carried out by citizens. Murders by gunshot WILL still continue to happen, just not in the breathtaking numbers they have been. It is a start, can we all agree on this?
3
Can we really hold the FBI responsible? The media calls the shooter "the suspected shooter." Rules, rules, rules? Maybe the FBI has rules also. The shooter was only suspected to be mentally ill. Can I call the shooter the shooter? I know I am not qualified to call him mentally ill. Where to begin straightening out an America where some rules cannot be broken and some rules are broken anyway?
2
The children of Baltimore have been screaming for anyone--the mayor, the country--to listen to their pleas to end gun violence. Let us hope that their voices will merge with those of Emma Rodriguez and her brave classmates.
Remember. When our children are gunned down, regardless of whether they are black or white, rich or poor, reside in gated communities or in city apartments, we lose future creators, inventors, contributors, leaders. No civilization can survive when it supports the annihilation of its own children.
8
I want to vote against illegal immigration and in favor of gun control. There do not seem to be any politicians who agree with me on both issues. If my priority is to end illegal migration, and I vote for the G.O.P., it looks like I am against gun control. If gun control is my priority, and I vote for the Democrats, it looks like I am willing to offer citizenship to illegal immigrants. The way our political system has developed with large, permanent political parties does not let the public to have a say on individual issues.
The framers of the Constitution hoped our country would not develop permanent political parties which would decide a position on every issue. They hoped individuals would form temporary groups to press for one issue of importance to them, and then disband. Maybe, at another time, some of these people would join another temporary group to press their representatives on a different issue.
The public should be able to vote on national referendums on each major issue to inform their Congressional representatives how to vote. This would let me vote against illegal migration and in favor of gun control.
You do know you'd lose that kind of direct vote right? The only reason Trump is president is because of the electoral college. Having the vote you describe and you'd be suicidal about President Hillary.
1
You seem to believe the Dems are for illegal immigration.
That is just incorrect. But if you really cared, you would know that.
Vote GOP. They are for you.
1
We cannot get agreement on gun regulations - why? The far left wants no guns, the far right wants no restrictions. Neither extreme trust or even respect each other. And then we have Congress who is afraid (?) of both sides. Or is it that we have a Congress that reflects these two extremes vs. the majority of citizens that want existing laws enforced (no excuses) and some simple regulations - register all guns (no excuses) and outlaw any gun that can shot 1000 bullets in 5 minutes. Pretty simple, won't address all tragedies, but that would be impossible.
The Far Left wants no guns. Where are these people?
The Far right wants no restrictions. That would be all of the GOP Congressmen.
One side are straw men. The other are real, live people.
The real problem though is this: the second amendment is pretty far reaching, so it's really hard to imagine things like bans on assault weapons or large capacity magazines withstanding a court challenge, especially with Neil Gorsuch now on the bench. There are things that can be done now that would help. For example, there is data supporting the effectiveness of waiting periods, and background checks, yet even these most no-nonsense regulations are not universal. Also, there are federal laws on the books with extremely severe consequences for illegal gun transfers (serious jail time and fines), yet these laws are very rarely enforced. But, the sad truth of the matter is that we aren't going to solve these random mass shootings as long as the second amendment is in place because solving them really requires gun restrictions of the sort you see in Japan, the UK and Australia. There is a reason these things happen here and not there: it's called the second amendment.
I am in congress, and i think its time to take Gun control measures similar to Europe and Australia. Because i am in the political class I have a HEAVILY armed security detail, and my Elite supporters have armed security as well.
My children have a security detail, their class of citizenship requires constant protection. The safety of my family and the families of my friends need to be protected, and we make sure to always have very reliable armed security. My class of citizenship needs to make important decisions for YOUR class of citizens, armed security is only a benefit of the POLITICAL citizenship class. My Elite friends need to provide entertainment to the "other" class of citizens, armed security is a benefit of their ELITE citizenship class.
Stand with me law abiding patriot and proletariat, or kneel if your prefer. The time then now for YOUR citizenship class to turn in those archaic firearms. Together, if our classes of citizenship can work together, we can make this country safe. I have decided to disarm you for the good of your children, its unfortunate they do not have the citizenship benefits of my children. I stand by this decision I have made for YOU, and i believe its the right decision for YOU and the safety of YOUR family.
1
We cannot shame the NRA. But people can make it toxic.
We cannot shame the GOP. But we can vote them out.
The GOP has had control of Congress from Sandy Hook to now. Enough chances. I do not know if the Dems can or will do anything, but I know the GOP will not.
73
gratis, the problem with voting for the Dems is that they will offer amnesty to the illegal immigrants, the vast majority of whom have next-to-no education and so will be dependent on government subsidies for the rest of their lives. If these migrants are given amnesty, they will petition to bring in their equally uneducated relatives who will also become dependent on our government. In addition, the mere act of giving yet another amnesty will encourage still more illegal migration.
I want to vote for candidates who will control guns, but who will not give amnesty to illegal migrants.
2
The Democrats absolutely can speak up boldly and loudly, but unfortunately our Democratic Congress leans toward complacency. I support our Dreamers, but sensible gun control should be made the priority issue.
I totally share your contempt for the NRA, but many MILLIONS of dems own guns, too. Alas... :(
I would guess that the 33% who voted for Trump would also be against any form of gun control - period. No matter the argument about hunting, self-protection, etc. They will not listen. Probably not even if their own child died. In fact, their answer is that we need more guns.
That's pretty stiff opposition. Not that change can't be made but Americans have to decide what are their priorities.
4
We are working to replace Ted Cruz this November with Beto O'Rourke. Cruz has an A rating from the NRA and is a major recipient of donations from that organization.
Beto is running a grassroots campaign and since January has raised $2 million in 43,000 individual donations. He has a good chance of whupping Ted Cruz.
We are also battling Michael McCaul in the 10th district, the second richest member of Congress (after Darrel Issa retires, he will be the richest). McCaul also has an A rating from the NRA. He thinks his seat is sewn up, because the district is so heavily gerrymandered, but in reality, it contains 45% Republicans, 35% Democrats, and 20% independents. Democrats are mobilizing to get out the vote and to persuade independents to vote with us.
We have a chance, and we are going to give it our best shot. If nothing else, six Dems are running in the primaries - the largest number of candidates to challenge McCaul ever. They have all pledged to support whoever wins the primary, so there is solidarity among Dems, who realize that they are now fighting for the lives of our children, who are in serious danger from the proliferation of guns and rabid gun fanatics in the state.
20
Know that there are folks in Far West Texas who are with you.
2
I what I find heartening is that the students from the Florida High School that suffered with this latest shooting, are their tweets and responses back to Donald Trump's disgraceful tweet tying the missed response by the FBI to this tragedy and the investigation of his campaign and Russia; these young student are more intelligent, thoughtful and articulate than our current President.
16
That's not even a curb high bar for those kids to get over but still true.
2
The only way lawmakers are going to act decisively and in a positive manner is to hit them where it hurts them the most: NRA campaign funding. Any candidate who accepts funding from the NRA should be shunned by the voters! About 90% of voters in the USA support the same laws that apply to people who drive cars: "Gun safety" classes + Gun registration. If the NRA cannot support what the vast majority of the USA electorate wants, then they should suffer the consequences... along with the politicians who vote against the interests of most US citizens.
10
How to rid ourselves of 300,000,000 guns?
I am ashamed to admit the option of "cold dead hands" often appeals to me after these shootings. What else will it take?
3
So you want a civil war with 100,000 dead?
1
which is different from what we have now... in what way?
This one is just getting started and the liberals don't have guns.
I just read an article quoting a school safety expert, the founder of Safe Havens International, that said of the 2000 deaths on K-12 school campuses from 1998 to 2013, 62 were the result of shooting, 525 were the result of transportation accidents.
So lets all have a mob knee jerk reaction and sell some newspapers! Shall we?
2
Maximus:
So we should wait until 525 kids per year are being shot in our schools?
2
Let’s not pretend like any gun violence is acceptable, especially when it involves our children. If you are a responsible gun owner, great. No one wants to take your guns. People want a registry of owners, a no fly no carry law, a limit on military grade rifles/ ammunition. If you aren’t breaking any laws then why do you care about such restrictions??
1
Are you even alive, man?
2
Jeff Bezos will soon make the decision of where Amazon's new headquarters will be. Imagine if he chose Toronto for among other things Canadian gun laws. All American ingenuity is worthless if our citizens are being killed by people who should not have access to guns.
7
Do you think Bezos cares about anything but his own pocketbook and his celebrity status?
2
Americans are by nature an optimistic lot; yet some with an apocalyptic view find it necessary to bunker at home with combat-ready weapons. They lavish hero worship on law enforcement and yet profess a lack of faith in their ability to protect. American institutions export democratic values abroad but allow money and lobbyists to hijack the politics at home.
If you see something, say something. Given what we have seen, as your neighbor we are genuinely concerned for your well-being and feel an intervention may be in order. Please get well soon.
38
When I hear that there will be the end of America unless we ban guns and take guns away from law-abiding Americans, I take it as an example of apocalyptic thinking. Also, you perform what is called reductio ad absurdum. Not all Americans who own guns are survivalists. You are whipping up hysteria.
Very well put, but also remember that as there are these Republican led munitions manufacturers who must have their customers, the paranoid ones, there are also many Americans who renounce guns and do trust the police to protect them. In fact I have lived in 4 countries and the US has bar none some of the most robust policing, helpful police, that I have encountered.
Sign seen at protest, I suggest this as the NEW, improved NRA slogan:
" You can have my Gun, when you pry it from the fingers of my Dead Child ". Period.
3
How about a technical network- 2018 mass shootings stats by Gun Violence Archive lists most gun shootings in South with Florida listed four times. Historica data can help to predict the future. Congress knows this and chooses to ignore.
2
Since the NRA continues to promote that pretty much anyone should be able to purchase assault rifles and they will oppose any controls on assault rifles, it is logical that the NRA should pay for the placement of stop-the-bleed kits in every school in the US to be better prepared for the next school shooting. Uncontrolled bleeding is responsible for 35% of pre-hospital deaths after trauma events like intentional shootings.
There are approximately 98,200 public schools in the US. At $700 per stop-the-bleed kit, that is $68 million that the NRA should pay for the placement of one stop-the-bleed kit in every school. Since the Sandy Hook School shooting in 2012, there have been 239 school shootings in the US in which 438 people were shot, 138 of whom were killed.
In 2017 the NRA spent $5.122 million lobbying for few limits on gun ownership and they spent $30.3 million to help elect Trump. All this NRA money has been very effective with Congress and Trump, since neither will take action about limits on assault weapon ownership. In February of 2017, Trump even signed a bill rolling back an Obama-era regulation making it harder for people with mental illness to purchase a gun.
As some people are so find of saying: “Freedom is not free”. That includes the freedom to own assault rifles. If the NRA is so committed to this freedom, they need to pay for stop-the-bleed kits in every school to help at least some of the people shot in the next school shooting.
7
The "efficient market theory" of resource allocation in economics simply does not work as capitalists advertise unless all the direct and indirect lifetime costs of a product are included in its price.
1
Peter, Excellent suggestion. One topic we have not dealt with publicly is the type of damage assault rifles (e.g. high velocity 223 bullets) do (by design) to the human body.) I recognize that there is a squeamishness barrier to overcome here, but we can do this thoughtfully, with trauma surgeons discussing both the immediate medical attention needed for victims and future limitations on firearms to make them less destructive to human bodies. Curiously, there is little mention of this issue in the press, possibly to prevent further psychological trauma to Sandy Hook parents, etc. but we learned a lot about it in the baseball shooting of Steve Scalise. One bullet so traumatized his pelvis and abdomen that he almost died despite making it alive to the care of an excellent trauma team. Although handguns are used more often in robberies and murders, mass shootings often involve higher velocity, more damaging, military weapons.
3
Victims of this country's broken and inherently corrupt "family" courts and CPS/DCF systems have also done the same. We are meeting and organizing using the power of social media and to respond to the abuses of the $50B Divorce Industry and what amounts to the state sponsored trafficking of children in our "family" courts.
Creating a horrendous situation where 23 million children have had a parent and entire family and all of their supports erased from their lives for no valid reason or cause. To force the payment of unnecessary child support. All fueled by SSA Title IV-D federal dollars.
This is the fastest growing civil rights movement in this country today.
76% of all mass shooters came from single parent homes and were separated from one of their parents. Its time to stop the practice of eliminating fit parents from children's lives after an adult relationship ends or considering this to be normal or in any way in any child's "best interests." It is not.
1
I am dumbfounded by my own experience with the cavalier ways local judges toy with people's lives.
Mobilize your communities to march for gun control on Saturday, March 24th.
In the meantime, put as much pressure on your legislators as you can muster. The time is now.
COUNTRY OVER PARTY
16
Let's bring more people to DC than went for the Trump inauguration.
I find it tragically sad and bizarre that many of our elected leaders side with mentally distraught, alienated, psychotic, anger filled individuals or simple gun nuts in lieu of general peace, good will, harmony, etc.
Every parent who sends their child to school now undergoes a moment of totally unnecessary anxiety.
Thousands of schools now hold regular lock down drills to protect the rights of the mentally distraught, the mentally ill, the malevolent, or the gun nuts supported by many of our elected officials and at the expense of the health and well being of our children and students.
Our society protects the provision of junk food, gas guzzling automobiles, and even promotes the right not to have health insurance.
How long can all these rights and so called luxuries continue until something much worse gives?
Bohdan A Oryshkevich, MD, MPH
11
You are 100% right. Change must be real and it must happen at the very core of our election process. Start with: 1. Term limits for Congress. 2. Ban all corporate "donations" which is nothing but bribery. 3. Limit personal contributions to 100 dollars maximum. 4. Establish an election fund with a 1 dollar a week tax, or whatever amount is appropriate. 5. Abolish the Electoral College. This is the only way to have honest government that serves the people, not corporate or special interest.
1
Michael Moore was right!!!! The mother of Emmet Tillm was right. Quit sanitizing the news stories
We need to stop avoiding looking at what happened. LOOK RIGHT AT IT. Remember how quickly the pictures of falling bodies were erased from 9/11 coverage?
Publish the pictures of what actually happened. The children at Sandy Hook. The teens at Columbine. The adults and kids at Aurora. Etc. It is time to put those pictures right out there. Maybe that will get the lawmakers' attention?
14
Yes, like that little Vietnamese girl running from napalm on the cover of ..I think it was Life magazine. That photo galvanized people.
If you are in a position to ask a candidate a question concerning mass shootings, consider framing your question something like this:
“Do you plan to continue your support to the National Rifle Association as an organization co-responsible for school shootings? Why or why not?”
12
What I'd love to know and what nobody ever asks the family members of these victims is, who did they vote for? Wen enough of their children get killed, maybe they'll stop voting for the Rick Scotts, the Marco Rubios and the countless others who block any form of gun regulation whatsoever.
8
We have secret ballots because people are phobic about being punished for who they vote for. Keeping this secret does make it easier to hack elections, however.
5
From what I read it seems that individual American states determine gun control policy. The debate about gun control always is about the 2nd amendment to the U.S. constitution, which is not about individual states, but the country as a whole. Therefore wouldn't it make more sense to have one gun control policy that is uniform across the country, determined by the federal government?
And have the current federal government overrule New York's and California's strict gun control laws? Thanks, but no thanks...
6
It's nice to hear that the people of California and New York are satisfied with their gun control laws, but why should this be determined on a state-by-state basis? If the U.S. Constitution is a national document, shouldn't gun control be determined on a national basis? It would be a great election issue, and could possibly put the never-ending debate to rest.
Amazingly, tragedies like Parkland are not bringing us closer together as you would expect a human tragedy to do; they are driving us further apart. Each side is digging in.
My hat is off to people who are optimistic and think that this is the event that will finally produce change. But I don’t see it. We have two starkly different Americas now with fundamentally different perceptions of what “America,” “society,” and ”humanity” mean. On the one side are people who recognize the “social” in society, the collective – people grounded in reality, working together in a practical way for the mutual benefit of all. On the other side is a group obsessed with the apotheosis of the individual, who see America as a quasi-religious entity of individual freedom rather than collective equality. They worship abstractions like "patriotism' and sacrifice reality to the fires of those intangibles. Even though they share the same physical space with the first group, they utilize a different vocabulary and epistemology to navigate that space.
Two groups living together, yet each one feeling in the aftermath of the carnage as if they exist in a different dimension. One group’s response to the tragedy is raw empathy, a physical and emotional pain that links them to the victims almost as if they share the same body. They ask: how can we stop this? The other group says: these victims are collateral damage sacrificed to a higher principle of individual freedom – they are the price of freedom.
11
Choice words, Michael.
2
The focus on the FBI and protective services is a RED HERRING.
Imagine the scenario if the FBI based on the tip on youtube tracked the 19 year old Nicholas Cruz, and went to his home and interviewed him. Then being disappointed with his answers, went into the home and seized the AR-15 and the ammunition.
Does anyone doubt the outrage against the jack booted terrorists interfering with the 2nd amendment, the hearings, the firings, the effort to defund the FBI.
Similarly, can you imagine being a social worker going to a home of a disturbed 19 year old with an AR-15 and trying to talk him through problems. How many of us would like to knock on his door, knowing what is inside.
So, gun control and disarmament now. Spend the $25 billion for the wall and make America safe by banning assault weapons and then buying back as many as you can and melting them down.
17
How is it that the FBI leadership can expect to emerge unscathed, is it not time to do a complete housecleaning? Prevention in this case wouldn't have taken much of an "investigation." Alarmed citizens had given the FBI not one, but two completely specific, credible tips that Nikolas Cruz would massacre high-school students exactly as he did on Feb. 14. If the FBI had bothered to mount any investigation at all in response, it would also have found, long before the killings, a third, additional warning that some journalists found within two days afterwards: that Cruz belonged to an Instagram chat group where he made similar threats. He showed off his "arsenal" of seven guns, and wrote, "I think I am going to kill people." Yet no preventative action was taken.
1
What might you suggest? The government has no money to detain, house, feed, and evaluate all the kids that they get tips on. And with social media and kids unhappy with other kids ... that is a lot. And, you know, we need to shrink government. And get government out of harassing innocent people.
BTW... no human construct of any kind is perfect. We just do the best we can.
1
If Florida had background checks mandated by law the shooter may have been flagged even before purchasing his arsenal of seven guns.
Can I ask where Cruz got the money to buy the gun and bullets? Is this a fair question for the host family? Did he have a job?
3
If he doesn't have a job, he could have stolen the money or stolen things to sell to get the money. He could have stolen money from his own mom before or after she died. He could have sold items in the house that no one else would have missed.
1
Get rid of Gov. Scott and anyone else who takes MILLIONS OF $$$$$$ from the NRA. Marco Rubio Is another one who should go MILLIONS OF $$$$$$$ to put them in office to allow the sale of assault weapons !!!!!!
12
As a retired LEO and "first responder", I am getting tired of hearing the constant nonsense of deflection by "thanking our first responders" or "mental illness" in these situations. First responders, whether Police officers, Firefighters, EMS, and others respond to these situations because this is what they do...stand in harm's way for us. Their duty to their job of saving lives is driven by their devotion and desire to protect life, and not for a pat on the back by politicians. If you respond to a gun run or shots fired, you know full well that this may be your last call, your last run, and that you may not be going home tonight. It goes with the territory and you accept this because you are driven by duty and to serve and protect. Yet, these same politicians who claim to "thank first responders", are the very same people that puts them in actual danger when they are cahoots with the NRA in allowing this gun madness we have to continue. I'm sure that every first responder wishes they could have saved those that lost their lives that day and in other mass shootings. What they don't need are hypocritical thanks from these gutless politicians that will not do anything to change any of this. Same politicians that just this year removed rules that prevented the mentally ill from buying guns are now blaming mental health as the culprit. How hypocritical and worthless can they be? They are not the solution, they are the problem.
90
Same with their "thoughts and prayers." Their talk is cheap.
Bless you for your service.
10
Jake,
I used to be a "first responder" too, before we were called that. Politicians don't send us in harms way, our fire trucks do. This isn't the military, they aren't generals that order us into combat and the politicians don't start wars for the generals to play with.
4
A superb, heartfelt comment. We have close relatives who are city police officers. We fear for their lives every day.
Republicans (and, sadly, some Democrats in conservative states) place their re-election finances above the lives of our citizens and those who must respond to them in times of need.
We must take this bull by the horns. It IS a political issue! We will get nowhere unless and until we toss the Republican Party to the curb.
Elect gun control advocates. Punish the NRA and their members...who are complicit in the murder of innocent people in our nation. Protect our first responders!
COUNTRY OVER PARTY
We will not rest until it is done.
7
It’s not the actions being proposed that anger me. It’s the inaction.
They might as well just run ads saying “We love it when your kids die. Vote for us for re-election.”
17
Is it easy to win victories on gun control at the federal level?
At a hospital in North Broward County:
Reporter: Do gun laws need to be changed Mr. President?
Trump: Silence
Of course, it's not easy. But it can be done. These support groups and advocates are table setters. They're doing a great job under the most difficult conditions imaginable.
Trump might be silent, but we can hear the school students loud and clear.
If our present lawmakers can't come up with a solution, it is incumbent upon the rest of us to start making changes NOW!
13
I am so sorry to see that the people in this article are needed in our times. These are real heroes. I can imagine nothing more heroic than the action these parents take. This is courage that I cannot even imagine.
And uniquely American heroes, because other countries have no need for such services.
60
What do you mean? Do you mean that there is no violence outside the U.S.? Think again.
http://nationalacademies.org/hmd/reports/2016/a-national-trauma-care-sys...
If you look at the Natl Acad of Science study, improving emergency response systems and providing first aid training can save tens of thousands of lives.
Arguing about which single solution is best is a distraction. There are lots of ways to attack & kill.
Government at every level could easily propose the following plan:
1. Develop school safety standards
2. Fund school security guards
3. Fund emergency planning & response systems. There are some brilliant automated systems that could be developed.
4. Fund universal period 8 first aid training
5. Fund regional emergency exercises
6. Develop & fund emergency planning training programs, perhaps within Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers (FLETC).
Prayers, good thoughts, memorials, posters, and flowers don't change things.
What is important is that 148,000 die every year from trauma. Many of those can be saved. Focusing on the attack method de jour ignores the fact that the 'enemy' will change tactics to accomplish their goals. Sociopaths are typically smart and can game our defenses.
2
You forgot the part about gun control.
3
Bring back assault rifle ban and outlaw high capacity magazines.
19
The Guns They Are A-Blazin'
Come senators, congressmen throughout the land,
Our children's lives are at your command,
So take some action, don't sit on your hands,
Young voters are rapidly agin'
Gun money is bloodying schools 'cross the land,
For the guns they are a-blazing.
11
As a life member of the NRA I have always believed the first and only solution to these insane school shootings is to allow teachers, support personnel and administrators who have concealed carry permits to carry their weapon within the school. None of the solutions advanced have proven effective. The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. This effectively does away with the gun-free zone that these shooters seem to overwhelmingly favor. I believe by taking this action school shootings will become a thing of the past.
1
Do you really think that a teacher with a gun small enough to conceal is going to make a difference against a shooter with a semi-automatic military style rife that fires multiple rounds? If so, you are a delusional shill for the NRA and you place gun ownership above human life.
8
Classic NRA propaganda. So you mean that firearms training should be made mandatory for teachers and school administrators and that they should be required to carry federally mandated and provided guns on sharp at all times during class? First thing a shooter does is when bursting into a classroom is shoot the teacher... Or do you wanted an armed guard at every classroom door during the school day? What if a disgruntled student brings his legally acquired gun into class and starts shooting his teacher and his classmates? For now, the solution to have metal detectors and backpack inspections work much better, but ultimately the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is to make it near impossible for the bad guy to acquire a gun in the first place. Let's follow the example of the rest of the civilized world and enact strong gun legislation. Only then will school shootings become a thing of the past. As for the well-regulated militia: If someone wants to own a gun, let him sign up for and be accepted to, the National Guard, the military, or the police. If he doesn't pass the entrance criteria, he shouldn't be allowed to own a fire weapon.
7
My god, Grady, are you insane? More guns? You need to eat your Wheaties and find yourself a little moral courage.
2
In the months after the shooting at Sandy Hook, Democrats tried to reinstate the assault weapons ban which was in place from 1994 until eliminated in 2004 under the Bush Administration. In March, 2013, as the reinstatement of this ban was moving through the process of legislative approval, or defeat, Donald Trump tweeted this: "There won't be any new gun legislation. No surprise. Americans support the 2nd Amendment."
And there is the problem. Not just with the person who is now President. But with the narrative that sensible gun legislation is somehow tantamount to doing away with the 2nd Amendment. And it's no mistake Trump referred to "Americans" in the tweet, as if it is "un-American" to be in favor of an assault weapons ban.
12
If they published photos of what these weapons do to human bodies, it would probably just encourage more sick Americans to take up mass-shooting.
1
Sad but true.
Forget about shaming those who feel no shame. You cannot shame the NRA, you cannot shame weapons makers, and you cannot shame the Republican Party. But you can beat them; We need to beat Republicans at the ballot box, and we need to financially beat the NRA and manufacturers by hitting their precious bank accounts with an avalanche of lawsuits and losses in sales. They will never do the right thing for ethical reasons. This isn't an honest debate, this is a war, and we have to beat them. They have shown time and time again that they will never join us. If you want sensible gun control, this must be your mindset. Stop imploring people to search their nonexistent conscience. And get ready for a fight.
52
Word. See you on March 24th, Jim.
8
People who can't live without guns can't negotiate honestly either.
3
Exactly right, Jim. And with a whole host of other social problems, these people will not negotiate. They will not discuss.
You wake up one morning, similar to every other morning. Sun might be shining, it might be raining, but there is a pattern to your life. Your kids get up, get ready for school, lunch money. jackets, homework, maybe you drive them...maybe they walk or take the bus. Goodbyes are made..."later"..."see you"......"hurry up, you're going to be late"....Door slams. House us quiet. Coffee, paper, dog comes and goes. Then a phone call. The unimaginable. It is almost too hard too even think about. Gun control, background checks, limits on ammunition purchases, elimination of assault weapons. I hope, in my lifetime, to see these things happen so no family, no parent, no aunt, uncle or grandparent has to deal with this type of unforeseen grief...and no more children's lives are lost when such solutions are available.
31
How about a support network to boycott the purchase of firearms. Every time someone buy a firearm, the firearm industry makes money. That is the source of money that finances the NRA which pays off the politicians and runs political campaigns. Cutting off the flow of money is an excellent way to shut down the political power of the gun industry.
From comments posted here, there are three themes that keep emerging from the gun people.
1) AR-15s are fun to shoot.
2) Guns are my hobby.
3) Eliminating high capacity magazines would be inconvenient.
So there it is. How about an ad campaign themed upon:
Your hobby killed my child.
or
Having fun yet? with an image of shot dead kids and guys shooting at targets with ARs.
or
An image of a 30 shot magazine and a pile of dead kids saying, Hows that for convenience?
I think the antigun campaign would be more effective if it was targeted along personal responsibility issues instead of going after the 2nd Amendment.
The reality is that the purchase of any and all firearms is financing the slaughter of our children.
Note to Mr. Mueller: Investigate if the Russians pumped any money into the NRA to fund political campaigns. If they did, then the NRA should be indicted also.
26
People could picket gun shops under the same rules that allow picketing of Planned Parenthood clinics.
5
Parents, children, students and all responsible adults, should forget about trying to shame the shameless US Congress and NRA into taking immediate action toward responsible military weapon sales to civilians. Accept their inaction and focus on the sources of military weapons for civilian use: the manufacturers.
They have been getting a free pass on the issue for far too long. They should be the real targets of today’s activism.
Shine a bright light on and focus all your efforts on publicly shaming the manufacturers into self-regulating military arms sales to civilians - request and demand if necessary that military firearms and ammunition manufacturers create and enforce their own requirements for direct sales of military weapons and ammunition to civilians - and sell direct to buyers only.
59
Congress could TODAY repel the Law that stops folks from suing Gun Manufacturers. Support Sandy Hook Parents efforts to sue; already in court.
1
Which manufacturers you want to focus on? Foreign or domestic? One can always import guns. I am sure Russia will oblige with its Kalashnikovs.
The NRA IS a front for the gun industry..not for gun rights! I wish the media would start putting it that way!
Various news sources report that there are multiple marches, teacher/student walk-outs and other demonstrations already planned to DEMAND gun control that will prevent our children, our grandchildren and ourselves from being gunned down at school and/or other public places.
March 14 - Wednesday - Women's March organization - national 17 minute student/teacher walkout to honor those killed/wounded/lives destroyed in Parkland, FL last week.
March 24- Saturday - Students sponsored "March for Our Lives" to Washington D.C. and sister city marches
April 20 - Friday - Network for Public Education - National Teacher/student walkout
Each of us who support reasonable gun control must support every, single march/demonstration that is held until meaningful national legislation is passed. WE must not rest until it's done and WE must elect people with the courage and moral backbone to do it.
Gun violence is not a "mental heath" issue. It is not a "law enforcement" issue - except when previous law enforcement officers sponsor/promote gun shows.
GUNS ARE THE PROBLEM. GET THEM OFF THE STREETS OF AMERICA.
EVERY GUN in OUR United States of America must be REGISTERED on a national database, state LICENSED and fully INSURED for liability.
Just like cars.
Attention gun owners - WE THE PEOPLE - the vast majority of Americans - do not want your guns. WE want your guns to stop killing us and our loved ones. Don't you?
47
On March 24th I'd like to see one big march in DC, so we have the numbers that might impress Trump. Let's have at the march than he had at his inauguration.
They should take square aim at the Republican Florida legislature and Republican Governor Rick Scott. Because the best way to prevent this kind of tragedy in our community is to ban the sale of assault rifles. In all of the slayings of this sort (Sandy Hood, Orlando, Las Vegas) the shooter has chosen this class of weapon as the most lethal for the largest number of victims. And the only legislation the Republicans have passed in our state makes it easier to carry guns and use them (they're even considering a bill that permits silencers now).
27
Finally another student movement! Looks what students did in the '60's and 70's with our civil rights and peace movements. Now at last students are mobilized around an issue of national importance. Let's hope high school and university students around the country will keep up their momentum, will join each other and demand effective gun control (not the cosmetic solutions the NRA and their paid lackeys will propose).
140
We are all students and even at my advanced age we never stop learning.
I stand with the students, I will march with them and be an activist for gun laws which make sense and will effectively stop the tragic killing of our children and all Americans.
It has been done in most countries in the world why not here?
17
I love our children dearly, they represent hope and are the ones the ones that will bring change, honesty, and common sense back to government and it's people. Those politicians today that are not line up with the children, are against them, plain and simple. These politicians have fail us, have failed America, and have failed our most precious resource and commodity...OUR CHILDREN. They MUST be removed from office.
1
You have probably forgot that the 1960s were not all dope and flowers. There was plenty of violence. Is that what you advocate in your wisdom?
What does it take to get Congress to act responsibly? If the 17 dead were senators and representatives, would Congress finally have the courage (or fear) to act differently?
12
Their own children could be slaughtered and the Republicans would still scream for their beloved AR15s.
4
Well Jack it depends.... Are the hypothetically dead Congressmen in your example Republicans or Democrats? If they are Democrats, then go ahead and ask shooting victim Gabby Giffords what she thinks Republicans would do.
8
If some Congressman loses BECAUSE of the NRA support.
Which never happens.
1
Student Emma Gonzalez, a student, expressed best what needs to be said of this president:
"...f the President wants to come up to me and tell me to my face that it was a terrible tragedy and how it should never have happened and maintain telling us how nothing is going to be done about it, I'm going to happily ask him how much money he received from the National Rifle Association.
"You want to know something? It doesn't matter, because I already know. Thirty million dollars. And divided by the number of gunshot victims in the United States in the one and one-half months in 2018 alone, that comes out to being $5,800. Is that how much these people are worth to you, Trump? ....
53
I want to know how much of the $30 mil came from Russia.
6
Given that the organization has colluded with Russia to get Trump elected, will patriotic candidates for Congress now refuse to accept anymore campaign contributions from the NRA?
16
Some of the survivors are organizing a march on DC in March. I saw some of the students interviewed on the news. They were asked about gun rights and one of them responded "We have a right to live." My takeaway from all of this is that it seems there are some Americans that love their guns more than they love their children.
43
And they probably claim to be "pro-life".
6
God bless all of them.
12
Any ban on "assault weapons" will fail, because it is a ban on an amorphous concept. There are many weapons that are just as effective as "assault weapons" at mass killings, but they look different. An effective ban must strike at the functional heart of what makes mass killings so easy, which is the semi-automatic nature of many weapons, and the speed and ease with which they can be reloaded. The ban must have a specific end goal in mind, and that goal is to slow down the rate at which someone can fire, and to reduce the number of rounds they can fire before reloading. It is precisely during these reload events that any shooter is vulnerable to being taken out by his intended victims.
Any ban should, at a minimum, include the following:
- A ban on all semiautomatic weapons. Semiautomatic weapons serve no function in sport shooting or hunting. Demand that all firearms require significant manual motion to load a new round into the chamber after each shot. Think bolt or lever action rifles, or pump-action shotguns.
- A ban on all guns with external magazines.
- A limit on the capacity of the fixed, internal magazine of all firearms. Ideally, 5 or 6, since that would grandfather in most bolt and lever action rifles.
- A design of all internal magazines that minimizes the ability to use speed loaders.
- A ban on speed loaders.
20
Yes, regardless of what it looks like, an "assault weapon" is able to maintain a sufficient rate of fire to make defenders of a fixed position keep their heads down as it is rushed by the shooter.
1
Jim, One important detail is that weapons designed for the military were optimized to kill people if they make any contact. The high muzzle velocity is a major component of that. At the time the M16 was introduced many felt that it could not compete with the heavy large bore weapons already available. They designed it for lightness, so it could be carried through dense jungles, but added very high velocity so it remained lethal. Most of the design features of the M16 (AR 15) are not important to mass shooters. For example, its ease of cleaning, light weight, etc. are not important to its current popularity. I think most of the enthusiasm comes from its nasty look and its ability to explode fruit and jugs of water. Would 2nd amendment people accept moving towards guns that can be used for target shooting, home defense and hunting?
Marches are great and please go! But the only thing that will make any real difference in the fight for sensible gun safety laws is to vote out GOP incumbents including down ballot races. Even the GOP politicians who have not accepted NRA money, still enable those who have.
19
But marches of multitudes of voters shows members of Congress what voters support and won't support.
I'm not saying contributions don't make a difference.
I can't find it now but a recent article here on the Times described how little the NRA contributes, because it has such a hold on things already.
But I agree, vote out the GOP.
How about a national children's boycott of school? What would happen if children with the support of their parents simply stop going to school until sensible legislation is passed? Imagine a nation of empty schools - the economic, political and PR havoc!
113
This is brilliant and would be effective and alas, parents and others will find innumerable reasons to think "It's not practical," "It won't work," It will only hurt the children." (Given the deplorable condition of American education, no one will lose too much by missing some days even weeks of school.)v
Maybe people could announce "Our children will not go to school the week of ____ unless by then Congress has passed the following gun-control law." (And draft something for Congress just like the NRA lobbyists do.) Then, "If there is no gun law by (date), we will return to school but begin a TWO WEEK boycott." Ans so on, until Congress rallies we are serious.
1
The majority of parents must work. They can't stay home with kids while a boycott is on. A boycott limited to a few days might work for some.
Children can't afford to miss school. They need to complete their current grade level so they're ready for the next year.
The only thing that will really work is voting the NRA supported politicians out of office.
5
That's exactly what I've been thinking. I am encouraging my daughter to do exactly that and to spread the word. What if they said they planned to create a viral campaign to home from school, study effective activism, and called, lobbied, and harassed their members of Congress and state legislatures all day until a program of legislation was put in place, and they committed to stay home no matter how long it took. As parents, if sending our kids to school means risking their lives EVERY SINGLE DAY, isn't it worth it to support them in something like this????
2
Solutions:
1. Minimum purchase age to be 21 except military and law enforcement
2. All states and territories should required to add all judicially adjudged incompetents into the NICS or face the loss of all federal mental health funds
3. Doctors and teachers, etc. should be required to refer for investigation people who they believe are problematic. The investigation to be completed by civiil authorities to be presented to a judge of a court of competent jurisdiction. To keep the process honest and to protect constitutional rights the respondent must be represented, have the right to appeal and have the right for restoration after treatment.
4.Also, Doctors, teachers, etc., should be held to the same standard as in child abuse cases and be held personally for their decisions to refer or not to refer based on the reasonable person standard.
It appears that there were many warning signs with Cruz that the profrssionals chose to ignore.
3
You leave out the most important solution: Ban assault weapons.
16
Seriously. Somehow it’s irresponsible and illegal to sell a 19 year old a beer, but it’s perfectly reasonable to sell them an assault weapon and tons of ammo.
2
Emily's List is supporting women all over the country who are running to take over state and federal seats. All of these candidates will support reasonable gun-control laws. They and the new generation of voters can finally change things. We need to make sure that every high school senior is registered to vote and informed about who is on their side in regards to this insane issue. The Onion had a wonderful headline that captures the situation. "‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens." We can prevent it, but only by replacing the NRA's puppets.
19
The reason men own assault weapons is the same reason Trump wants a big military parade. These people are deeply insecure and feel inadequate and need a symbol to express their manhood, which is questionable to say the least.
41
I call it “Child Sacrifice” - children and young people “sacrificed” to the NRA god, called the Second Amendment which is like a state-sponsored religion in its hold over people.
We need to repudiate that “god” - it is no longer of any use in the Constitution.
Hooray for all the folks trying to help each other and the nation. So no child will ever be “sacrificed” again - to the NRA religion,
End Child Sacrifice!
24
Second amendment needs to be amended to make sense in our current day and age.
Courageous members of the NRA should get involved in this. Follow the example of the teens who are mobilizing. Great that they are our future leaders!
Weapons of mass destruction manufacturers should be prohibited from selling these to others than police and military.
4
There are no courageous members of the NRA. That is why they are members of the NRA.
7
JB, the Second Amendment recognizes the necessity of a “well regulated militia” - not an unregulated one. With gun violence out of control, regulating it is not only our right but our constitutional duty.
Words mattered to the founders, and “well regulated” was a careful and deliberate choice. When words no longer matter, we’re lost.
3
Every single politician who took NRA money, including our pathetic President (31 Million) should be forced to give every cent they received to the victim's families, to gun control causes, and to sign a pledge NOT to accept a single penny from the NRA, the gun lobby, and/or their surrogates. The NRA is nothing but a terrorist organization funding murder in the USA. Don't be fooled just because they wear suits, they are terrorist of the worst kind as their motive is greed and money over life.
42
Names of recipients, and the amounts of blood money they take in, should be published over and over again before 2018/2020 elections.
Then let the voters decide!
10
Make a copies and distribute them in your community.
3
Also, notice that Governor Rick Scott was VERY quick to blame the FBI for this fiasco. BUT, he hasn't said one word about his own Agency that
" investigated " the shooter, and " cleared " him. Hypocrite, much ?????
103
Scott, Rubio, trump should be "hounded" by the courageous teenagers. Shaming can be effective!
12
Yes, Phyliss, Rick Scott is deflecting attention from himself. I think he sees attacking the FBI works for the Orange one, so why not jump on board rather than do anything meaningful or helpful.
What I really, really don't understand, though, is how a state twice elects a man who paid the biggest fine in history for defrauding Medicare. This is unbelievable to me. Can some Floridians explain this to a California girl?
I see too, your governor was plucked out of his status as most unpopular governor in the country. Given some strange religious post so that he can live to play on the national stage, given that he has failed at the state level. The Kochs seem to regard governorships as a breeding ground for acolytes in training. Walker/Brown/Scott. Cookie cutter corporate shills.
2
One way to deal with extreme loss is restitution. Time within the universe we are birthed into only runs one way. Once a tragedy has occurred, it cannot be undone. But, with restitution, the loss can be used to teach us what we need to do for a better future.
Use social media. Talk with others. Post to forums. Form groups. Advocate for stronger gun laws. Don't let elected officials get away with treating mass shootings as normal. https://democracy.io is a good place to start.
By expanding and extending our levels of concern, and taking creative initiative, we can transform even the greatest sorrow and use it for the benefit of all life.
4
The unfortunate severe and deep grief of the families of the victims of the
recent Florida school terror -- experience their state at root - - not as a result
gun access but plain inexplicable failure of local and national units supposedly
existing for citizen safety? ... In the practical aspects -- who was the fool gun shop who sold the weapon used?? What psych-meds was the shooter on
or on and not using??? Why was the educational system of Florida not
signalling and moving to an obvious need for a commit to "in" institituonal treatment .. There is no option in solution other than -- strict lockdown of
every school in session plus armed guards .. but this unfortunately can be had as well--- attacks could occur on outdoor grounds upon entry or departure .. This country has a bent towards violence in its entertainment
... along with other social and personal factors .. and the Florida killings are an outgrowth of same.. The blanket never ending media coverage need be
shrunk .. it only creates a reality possibility for someone pondering similar acts.. perhaps in light of government failure here ... solving the problem should be left to other entities
I support Trump on many things, especially making America more exclusive rather than being a dumping ground of the undesirables from around the World. But, his connection of FL shooting to FBI and Russia was deplorable. He is not the kind, caring leader we hope to have, he is the clinical guy who has a singular focus. He is like Gordon Gekko, with intense focus and little compassion. How did he get there, too many Business leaders decided Americans were too expensive for jobs and better to hire others at cheaper rates, this is blowback.
2
Yes, he has a singular focus: HIMSELF!
Wake up!
22
He has ZERO compassion. Period.
22
I think the NY TImes can help the support movement in the role of fourth estate by publishing s list of Congress persons who accepted money from the NRA. Did Senators Rubio and Nelson from Florida accept such money?
This young high schoolers will be voting soon and they will be casting their votes based on whether or not the NRA has bought the candidate on the ballot.
I'm ready to support the movement. Tell me where and how to send money if needed. I will donate half of the money I was going to spend on a good seat in he ballpark this year.
The high schoolers in Washington, D.C. need to rally in front of the NRA headquarters on the special day coming up.
93
This is what is needed, a grass root movement that will send a clear message to Congress and this President. It is...YOU work for the people, NOT for the NRA and the gun lobby. YOU will do YOUR JOB or we will do ours and do everything we can, organize, protest, and donate to make sure we NEVER AGAIN have our will ignored. None of you people deserve our vote as you are just as complicit in all these massacres as the triggerman. Your inaction, excuses, or silence means you are not worthy of serving the American people. YOU must go.
13
HERE IS YOUR LIST OF NRA RECIPIENTS
1.
John McCain
Ariz.
“Cindy & I are praying for the victims of the terrible #LasVegasShooting & their families.”
$7,740,521
FROM THE N.R.A.
2.
Richard Burr
N.C.
“My heart is with the people of Las Vegas and their first responders today. This morning’s tragic violence has absolutely no place here in America.”
$6,986,620
FROM THE N.R.A.
3.
Roy Blunt
Mo.
“Saddened by the tragic loss of life in #LasVegas. My thoughts are with all of the families affected by this horrific attack.”
$4,551,146
FROM THE N.R.A.
4.
Thom Tillis
N.C.
“Susan and I send our deepest condolences and prayers to the families of the victims of this horrific and senseless tragedy in Las Vegas.”
$4,418,012
FROM THE N.R.A.
5.
Cory Gardner
Co.
“My family and I are praying for the families of those injured and killed in Las Vegas last night.”
$3,879,064
FROM THE N.R.A.
6.
Marco Rubio
Fla.
“I’m praying for all the victims, their families, and our first responders in the #LasVegas #MandalayBay shooting.”
$3,303,355
FROM THE N.R.A.
7.
Joni Ernst
Iowa
“My prayers are with all of the victims in Las Vegas, and their loved ones affected by this senseless act of violence.”
$3,124,273
FROM THE N.R.A.
8.
Rob Portman
Ohio
“Jane & I mourn the loss of innocent lives in this horrific attack in Las Vegas last night. We are praying for those taken from us, their families & all those injured in this attack.”
$3,061,941
FROM THE N.R.A.9
89
Let's join the rally!
6
I know that money does not provide solace to the these families but surely the miserable politicians who have accepted financial support from the NRA should be relentlessly pressured to contribute those dollars to appropriate aid efforts. Starting with the ever sympathetic Messrs Rubio and Scott.
26
Gun Control organizations, Parent Groups, PTA, Teacher's Unions and affiliated unions , Women's March organizers, should collaborate and organize the most powerful action network to force government to enact legislation like they have in Australia. Now is the time!
39
I agree, Anna. https://democracy.io is a useful way to tell legislators what you think. Also, there is nothing like a handwritten letter. All the physical addresses are available online.
6
Thanks Dr. Burch, but letters alone don't cut it. I'm talking mass demonstrations and if needed, strikes, until the legislators in Congress budge and enact effective gun control legislation to protect children and their teachers. That requires organization and strategic planning. Unions have the expertise to do that. One more human sacrifice to satisfy the bottom line of the gun manufacturers is one too many! A commenter elsewhere in this paper calculated that a human life snuffed out by gunfire goes for a little over $8000 in campaign contributions from the gun lobby. Go figure... Let rich companies opposed to the continuing slaughter of American children put their money where their mouth is and support representatives with an "F" grade from the NRA.
8
Please remember that Florida's Child Protective Services gave this kid a clean check-up. As we here Gov. Rick Scott blaming everybody else for this tragedy, he takes no responsibility. This department, starved of funds, privatized and ignored by the right-wing looses a child a week from foster care; has several deaths a month among children they were to protect. This has gone on for all of Scott's term and neither he nor the legislature take responsibility. Private profit making firms of political supporters run thousands of cases. There is blood on their hands everywhere. Every time they blame somebody else and walk away from their responsibility. The public must put this ineptness at the feet of Florida's politicians and the GOP. Rick Scott was made for Trump and robbing the public blind.
63
Florida actually had a law that made it illegal for doctors to talk to parents about gun safety in the home. It was repealed by a federal court. The 2nd amendment says nothing about advocating for safety.
1
The citizens of the United States deserve basic public safety.
The National Terrorist Association, the Guns Over People party, and America's gun-fetishizing minority have hijacked public safety and delivered a nightmarish national shooting gallery that rejects the will of the people, basic public safety and representative democracy.
Register and vote on November 6 2018 as if your life and public safety depends on it.....because it does.
The NRA-GOP sponsors semi-automatic murders weapons that randomly slaughters us; Trump expanded the pool of gun buyers by 75,000 people adjudicated unable to manage their own personal affairs who can buy murder weapons; the Republican Party is an aider and abetter of 2nd Amendment slaughter.
Vote Democratic....your chances and your children's chances of being murdered in a mass slaughter by a deranged male sociopath will automatically decrease.
Shame on the Guns Over People party for their homicidal thoughts, prayers and national shooting gallery.
69
Socrates, you are wrong about 75000 adjudicated people being allowed to purchase firearms. These people were not adjudged by anyone other than a bureaucrat not a judge. The SSA and VA decided that any recipient who had a financial manager would be added to the system as incompetent. I guess that would also include most of the hollywood elite as well as John Kerry, the Kennedy dynasty and the Clinton’s who all, I am sure, have business managers that handle their day to day expenses and financial decisions.
I feel you may be for the most part preaching to the choir. Leave some messages on the FOX comment sections. Be forwarned - they are a pretty nasty group.
6
Jay:"The SSA and VA decided that any recipient who had a financial manager would be added to the system as incompetent"
Source?
3
It is such a sad commentary when we have one massacre after another of our children, babies, and innocent people and nothing is done to stop it. Marco Rubio should be ashamed to even say that new laws won't prevent this when we it will. We have laws against every crime you can think of and even though it doesn't make any of them 100% effective, it reduces or cuts many of them down drastically. If it were their own children that were massacred in a school shooting, they would be the first ones to want to abolish guns entirely, not just gun control. Then again, maybe not as the money is just too enticing and worth innocent lives. All these folks, particularly the GOP that take blood money from the NRA as just as guilty as the gunman who pulls the trigger as THEY facilitate their ability and desire to commit these crimes. Senator Rubio, doing nothing is NOT an answer, it is being complicit and YOU and your accomplices in the GOP have no right or deserve to be in elected office. You and those that support the NRA's right to murder innocent people have no conscience or morals. When our children become the driving force for change instead of our elected leaders, then it is time for you and others to be removed from office. Vote these worthless worms out. Enough is enough.
30
Other countries with strict, enforced gun laws don't have near the problem that we do. Look at what Australia did.
7
It must be terribly upsetting and a continuing insult to these families to know that the entire political debates has nothing to do with their grief, nor the wide range of highly reasonable ideas. It is just about money. Gun makers money. Not only did the family suffer the unimaginable trauma of losing a child, it was predictable and has a price tag. In the end, all of politics tells us what we value and what we don't. The oligarchy has armed guards. The rest of us are just a statistic. Vote,....... it is the only way out.
35
In the end, it is always about the money. Money is the mother's milk of politics (Jesse Unruh). Senator Rubio's financial major backers in his bid to become president were two billionaires whose major concerns were tax cuts and support for Israel, not the safety of children. Senator Rubio needs to be replaced next time he runs for re-election.
8
How incredibly sad that the parents and children of so many tragedies must continue to demand the most obvious solutions to these never-ending mass murders.
Their voices are so powerful, their goals so clear, and yet, it's far more likely their pleas will never move Congress.
The only way to change gun laws is to change Congress. Vote in November as if your life, and your family's lives, depend on it.
135
For many it did happened, and for many others, it will happen to them too. Tragically, this will happen again and again and this GOP (Guns Over People) will not do anything as they beholden to the NRA that stuffs millions into their pockets. They like to call it "contributions" but as a retired LEO, it is what is known as bribery...accepting money or a benefit in return for favors, special treatment, and/or providing them a benefit in return. They are betting that in a few weeks, months, this will be forgotten and it's...business as usual. Those young children deserve more, much more, they deserve to know that their lives were not lost in vain. We must make sure not to forget or allow distractions to take our eyes off it. And there will be distractions, it's what they do.
5
I completely agree that the only way to enact laws for gun control is to vote out the Republicans in Congress. Voters or nonvoters ensured that they would control Congress and would never vote against their major funder, the NRA. The voices of students in Parkland and other school districts will be heard, but it is not clear whether their protests will have an impact as long as we have a government controlled by immoral Republicans. For those who want this crisis in our country to end, you must vote out anyone who is beholden to the NRA--and that includes the president.
1
The old, weak, powerless, children, and infirm will never have power to protect themselves. They do not consume. They have absolutely no value - unless a family member cares. Then you better watch out.
BAN ASSAULT WEAPONS!
Yesterday.
72
And semi-assault, all guns as far as I'm concerned. I'm tired of hunters, too—Go to the grocery store.
2
Killing anyone - especially children - has no place in America. Guns have ripped the heart out of our nation. This is not what our forefathers imagined in the Constitution. A "well regulated militia" requires regulation. Well-regulated regulation and lots of it. Now. Period. Over. Done. Now!
82
There would be NO 2nd Amendment if our forefathers saw the carnage happening almost every day in our schools, places of work, theatres, churches, and places where people congregate. The 2nd Amendment has no place in our lies now, it is outdated, it is useless, and it only promotes violence against our own people.
8
Agree, John, but the rest of the country has to get there. A huge lift when we couldn't even ratify the Equal Rights Amendment twenty years ago (when Congress was somewhat functional). Until that day of reckoning and an amendment to the Bill of Rights is drawn and voted on, we need strict regulations controls. Now!
4