So...

She successfully offended herself and her children?

"That would imply he was skilled in deception"
 

HA!

I amend myself, then: 'unskilled sophist'.

##

"I don't think it's any of my Drs biz if I have a gun"

Agreed, which is why I'll tell the doc, 'that ain't germane to nuthin', move on, Doc.'

The doc can ask me anything he or she likes...no compulsion on my part, however, to answer.

##

"we have LOTS of other rules in our society (another concept I know you have an allergic reaction to)"

Yes, and I ignore most of them, hence my *shrug* regarding any and all suggestions (moderate or extreme) that come down the trestle on how to control guns and/or gun owners.

Ban away! Restrict away!

Catch me, if you can... :neutral:

My doc asked mainly to be sure we practice good "gun hygiene" in the house. Locked out of reach of the kids, ammo kept separately, etc etc.

"Pearl High School in Mississippi; Sullivan Central High School in Tennessee; Appalachian School of Law in Virginia; a middle school dance in Edinboro, Pa.; Players Bar and Grill in Nevada; a Shoney's restaurant in Alabama; Trolley Square Mall in Salt Lake City; New Life Church in Colorado; Clackamas Mall in Oregon (three days before Sandy Hook); Mayan Palace Theater in San Antonio (three days after Sandy Hook).

There's a reason that you never heard much about the places on the second list. The number of innocent people killed was much smaller — sometimes, none. In each of them, the "active shooter" or potential shooter was confronted by an armed defender who happened to be at the scene when the attack commenced; the bad guy wasn't able to just keep going about his deadly business, as at Sandy Hook.

Sometimes the hero was an armed school guard (Sullivan Central High). Sometimes it was an off-duty police officer or mall security guard (Trolley Square, Mayan Theater, Clackamas Mall and the Appalachian Law School, where two law students, one of them a police officer and the other a former sheriff's deputy, had guns in their cars). Or a restaurant owner (Edinboro). Or a church volunteer guard with a concealed carry permit (Colorado). Or a diner with a concealed carry permit (Alabama and Nevada). At Pearl High School, it was the vice principal who had a gun in his car and stopped a 16-year-old, who had killed his mother and two students, before he could drive away, perhaps headed for the junior high."

AND because they rushed into doing this, it was poorly written and virtually every police officer in the state is in violation.
YAY FOR POINTLESS EMOTIONAL DECISIONS!

Frikkin idiots. Addressing the scary looking "assault weapons" which accounted for .872% of the fatalities is ignorant. illogical and does virtually nothing to prevent these crimes.

From what I have seen, the rifle the Sandy Hook POS brought was found in the car, the two weapons he actually used to kill all the children were semi automatic pistols. One was a Glock and the other a SigSauer, both of which were stolen from his mother. Both of which had 15 round clips.

By the way, where was the outrage day after day, week after week, month after month while hundreds of black children were being killed? I must have missed all that. Heck, in Chicago alone with ridiculously stringent gun restrictions, more people were killed (Over 220) than all troops killed in Afghanistan last year.

I hear you! My thoughts exactly

Our pediatrician asks pretty regularly too. I'm in favor of the question. If the simple question can get an idiot gun owner who isn't practicing safe gun storage around kids to pause and think for a minute about what they are doing, then it's worth it. It's like asking if you smoke or drink or do other things that increase your risk of getting hurt. Simple patient history questions.

Do you?

"YAY FOR POINTLESS EMOTIONAL DECISIONS!"
 

Indeed.

Don't expect much support from this crowd, however.

I made the same point with my comments about 'response' versus 'reaction' and my post was met with silence.

Again: passion (anger, hate, fear, frustration) is the enemy of response and is the bedrock foundation for reaction.

*shrug*

Absolutely. We are very hygienic at our house. Not helpful in the event of intruders, but we don't get too many out here.

regarding the 23 exec orders posted up-thread
 

What's unfortunate (for those in favor of tighter controls)...

Not a one of these orders (or the laws that may eventually extend out from them) address the estimated 270,000,000 guns (and accompanying ammunition) 'out and about' now.

Maybe if the NRA hadn't effectively declawed the ATF and made it impossible to track dealers' inventories, we'd have a better idea.

Someone watched the Daily Show...:p:

But, Dana, you Brits did have a better idea.

As I point out several times up-thread: while it would be a long, expensive, bloody endeavor (with no guarantee of success), confiscation is the ticket.

If 'gun' is the problem, then remove the problem, yes?

*Isn't this what you folks did on the Great Isle?

As law, hasn't confiscation worked there?









*not exactly confiscation, I know, but as close to it as possible...strict controls on what is allowed and who is allowed to own and use, with severe penalties for illegal possession and use

Sort of yeah. The rules were tightened up and made very restrictive, at the same time there have been intermittent amnesties on firearms.

It's been a few years since the last time they did an amnesty. But it is amazing how many guns they bring in with those.

It hasn't solved gun crime in this country. There have been several gang related shootings in recent years and a few incidents involving children. But the numbers are very low nationwide, and comparatively low even in our hotspot areas.

But, the UK is a very different proposition on something like this. Guns weren't so ubiquitous to begin with. The number of guns in the country at any one time, even when ownership wasn't so regulated, just wasn't on the same level per capita as it seems to be in the States. The cultural associations are very different. Not to say there aren't/weren't any such associations, but they are a much smaller part of the national psyche.

The opposition to gun control was there, and it was vocal and heated at times, but the ban on hunting foxes with hounds caused more popular debate and passion.

We're also a pretty small island. And we only have 2 or 3 legislative and jurisdictional areas to come to agreement in order to take action. On a purely logistical level the idea of removing all guns from all but a qualified few, in a country as large and legislatively fragmented as the US seems an exercise in futility.