Mapleleaf.Iwont disagree with some of what you say. There needs to be control required (more than there is) but its a slippery slope. Start here....end where?

Also a lot of crap Ihave heard since this happened was about assault weapons. This guy used a bolt action and 2 hand guns. again. Guns are an instrument. There is other issues involved

Try that slippery slope argument on one of the grieving parents. See where it gets you.....

I highly doubt mental illness has gone UNNOTICED. Consider that my diagnosis of chronic depression came when I was eight, unheard of a decade before. I volunteer at a bunch of organizations that assist with children with autism and I guarantee that without medical advances half of those kids would just be called idiots and forgotten about. We don't throw people with downs into institutions and bar them off from society.

That being said, people hide their issues. When people see issues in other people, they are afraid to say it. That's the problem, not that it goes unrecognized.

Mapleleaf. Nice try. I did not kill them. A disturbed young man did there is more to this than guns and anyone suggesting otherwise is lying to themselves for political reasons

People ignoring the fact that the mentally ill have easy access to legal guns. The problem is legal guns and a culture that cares more about guns than children.

Stressedlines and Gunfighter,

Don't delude yourselves into thinking that if this person had a knife, that he'd make as many victims as he did. Don't delude yourselves into thinking that it's easy to make a bomb and detonate it timely. You need skills for both these things. You need to acquire these skills and prepare to do it. The same doesn't go for guns. You can just aim and fire and that's it, a person's dead. A little person. And another. And another.

Think about that.

Nobody is debating the sorrow and gried for the loss of life. That isn't in question. The reaction we take as a nation is what is being debated

Putin as much as we disagree usually we do agree in knee jerk reaction either way can have dire consequences

Twenty children died. Sounds pretty dire to me.

I've come around to thinking that people like Stressedlines and Gunfighter are partially responsible for things like this. And yes I am serious. Using flawed logic they defend the right of a very sick person to obtain assault rifles, which in turn leads to situations like this.

I mean these guns were completely clean. Purchased by the victim's mother, but they end up in the hands of a maniac. But that is fine. At least she was protected from the government with a bushmaster and two handguns.

There are no legitimate reasons for owning firearms, just like no legitimate reasons for speeding or letting children play with matches.

"Yes, we must take away the guns from people who have never misused them! "

Plenty of people who have driven under the influence have never crashed.

It's still reckless and the availability of guns is directly related to the number of gun deaths. You want us to sit on our hands and do nothing, pretending that every massacre is a lone deranged person and sui generis.

It is a lone deranged person. That doesn't change the fact that the lone deranged person's killing power is amplified considerably by being able to shoot people.

If you try to argue a gun wasn't necessary to cause this situation you are either extremely stupid, or lying to yourself.

Both power & opportunity, yes.

And plenty of non-deranged people escalate situations with guns due to availability.

"Start here....end where?"

End with a free society that doesn't have to worry about their 5 year old getting shot at a school, or at shopping mall, or at a movie theater, or at a public park.

Your "freedom" paralyzes the rest of us with fear and grief. Gun advocates are just plain selfish, that's what it comes down to.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-20742462

Not many things make me cry.....

Let's concede that you could repeal the 2nd Amendment, how you gonna enforce it? With millions of guns in the homes of millions of Americans? And you think they are going to give them up? You think there will not be a black market? You think those who want to have a gun won't have them?

Live in the real world.

@Dipplayer. The people that want to have guns with intent to commit crimes are going to be getting them on the black market anyway. Getting them out of the hands of regular Americans who might snap and kill people or might have loved ones with easy access who shouldn't be anywhere near guns (see this shooting) should be a bigger concern.

@Stressedlines, you're trying to invalidate opinions of others by saying that they aren't American. Not only is this terribly ethnocentric, but you're also ignoring the fact that the rest of the world clearly has much lower rates of gun violence and thus it is more likely that something is wrong with us than with them.
You should also stop saying that this is a new occurrence, look at number five:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/12/14/nine-facts-about-guns-and-mass-shootings-in-the-united-states/

"Let's concede that you could repeal the 2nd Amendment, how you gonna enforce it? With millions of guns in the homes of millions of Americans? And you think they are going to give them up? You think there will not be a black market? You think those who want to have a gun won't have them? "

How about you live in the real world. There is a huge difference from a country that can legally own guns up to the moment they shoot somebody and a situation where that gun or certain types of guns are outlawed.

Oh, yes, let's disarm the 99% of us who are sane and peaceful, because there might be a crazy who gets a hold of them. And you didn't address my point. How are you going to "get them out of the hands of regular Americans?" In a free country? What, are we all supposed to inform on our neighbors? Are we expected to hand them in voluntarily? Don't make me laugh! The guns are out there. Trying to wish them away is like trying to wish away the nuclear bomb. It's here, we have to live with it. Grow up and live in the real world--the world as it is, not the make-believe world you would like it to be.

Oh, OK, your freedom to own a gun and shoot things because it makes you feel more manly is more important than the lives of innocent people. Now I understand.

Live in the real world, If we took those guns out of the hands of the "sane and peaceful" there would be 20 children alive today. I'm glad you are willing to pay for your freedoms in their blood.

Yes, that was helpful. Instead of snarky comments you could respond to my actual argument.

More mushy-headed wishful thinking. How do you make them go away, so we can live in your perfect world? How? I'm conceding my freedom and my rights, for the sake of argument. Now, give me a real, workable solution.

No, I didn't say it would be a perfect world. I said that a maniac would have a much harder time killing his mother taking guns to school and killing elementary schoolers. Or a maniac buying drum magazines and storming a movie theater to massacre everyone inside. The mushy headed wishful thinking is you who think that gun owners are virtuous americans until they shoot somebody in cold blood.

Putting more words in my mouth.

What fucking word did I put in your mouth?

"you who think that gun owners are virtuous americans until they shoot somebody in cold blood."

I'm not sure what you meant by that, and I didn't say it. Gun owners are people, good, bad and indifferent. But most of them are sane and peaceful.