Various random points:
-The Militia Acts under George Washington forced men to buy firearms from private companies if they were called upon for the militia and did not have them. They were also registered with the government. There were some opt out loopholes, kinda like the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare).
-The Calackmas situation may very well have been shortened by the CCW guy, and that's great. It seems like it may have worked.
-The Tucson AZ situation had a CCW holder on site and he was not able to help. What helped? Jared Lee Loughner finally had to reload and was tackled. In that situation, the extended mags meant more people died before he could be stopped. Period. PERIOD.
-I trust well trained and responsible CCW holders who have gone through a strict screening and/or training process. I'd be scared of just any yahoo applying for a slip of paper and being granted CCW. There are a lot of dopes out there looking to play hero. See George Zimmerman.
-At Columbine, they had police stationed on campus. He was offsite when the shootings started, but he arrived quickly and exchanged fire with one of the gunmen. He had a negligible impact on the carnage that day.
-They had armed security at Virginia Tech too. A lot of good that did them. What use is armed security if a lock and chain can keep them from saving you?
-At Sandy Hook, it's been implied that the sirens of approaching officers caused Lanza to stop the shooting and off himself.
-I'm not against police at every school, but given the cost to effectiveness ratio, it may not be the most effective use of manpower or money. There are probably a dozen more effective ways of saving lives with those extra officers and cash than having them patrol schools where, statistically speaking, your kids are just about as safe as can be.
-It's often mistaken that fully automatic weapons are outlawed. It's not true. You can legally purchase fully automatic weapons if you go through a rigorous registration process and are willing to fork out the cash for very rare weapons. Most states still allow this. Funny thing though, fully automatic weapons make up a tiny percentage of gun crime. Only two instances to my knowledge involve legal Class III gun owners committing crimes with them. I guess government regulation can work wonders, right?
-The whole "assault weapon" discussion is unnecessary. Magazine capacity matters more than whether or not the weapon is a pistol or a rifle with bayonet lugs and such.
-Sensible gun regulation is coming. Deal with it. You'll still have your toys, but it will be made somewhat more difficult for people to get weapons on a whim. It will probably involve better regulation of gun show sales and private sales, too. It's been a long time coming and it will happen. Thank f**k, too.
-We need to revamp how we deal with and track mental health problems in this country. It won't solve everything, but we can do a lot better than we are now.
-The NRA's response of an officer at every school is a laughable solution to our widespread gun violence problems. It would not have stopped the Aurora shooting where officers responded within 90 seconds and that jackass had already shot 70(?) people. I understand that the NRA is essentially just a lobbying group, so I don't really expect any common sense answers from the likes of them.
-Pretending that our gun laws are all we can do and still be in compliance with the 2nd Amendment is laughable. Pretending that more regulation couldn't help stem the tide of violence isn't laughable, it's a sad defeatist attitude. Luckily that attitude is fading.
Let's hope some sane common sense solutions come up out of this. We can't afford to sit back and shrug our shoulders any longer.
