Hixter

The world would be a pretty boring place if everyone had the same thoughts and beliefs. To each his own, etc.

I'd reckon that close to 50% of my friends are of Mexican heritage and they're much harder on illegal immigrants that I will ever be. I can empathize with people on both sides of the issue, but all I have to do is remember the difficulty and costs that other friends had to deal with while becoming citizens the legal way and it's really no contest as far as I'm concerned.

No, I don't have all the guns that I want. I'll probably buy him a rifle when he turns 10 if his father (a Californian, Democrat, union guy who likes guns) doesn't buy him one first. My kids will have to fight over the AR when I croak.

No, because it's not. Mankind is in a better place than it's ever been. No they aren't. It most certainly won't be. People can be violent and no amount of legislation will change that. Hell, every one of us is here because our ancestors killed people and animals in order to rise to the top of the ecosystem. Pull your hair out about the futility of it all if you'd like, but that's the way it is. Really, the best one can do is to make sure that you live a peaceful life yourself.

Marry any consenting adult you please Enforce the laws and deport illegal immigrants. They're better than boots-on-the-ground fighting. It'll get very interesting as more nations acquire armed drones. Only military action will stop them and our president seems to be shying away from it and isn't inclined to let Israel try, either. The Palestinians and their supporters don't want peace, they want Israel removed. Until they support Israel's continued existence there will be no peace. Across-the-board spending cuts until the budget is balanced. It's practically over.

I've spent not even a second doing so.

I was pointing out that, at first report, it wasn't a mass shooting like the Sandy Hook shootings that required immediate "action" by legislators surrounded by little kids used as props. But mainly I was just upset that you were insinuating that gun owners (and that includes myself, I suppose) didn't care about murder victims.

It's still early, but it appears to have been 2 people shooting at each other and not a shooting spree. That's some bullshit right there.

Back-ordered, I assume? I haven't seen any at a reasonable price at the usual locations. I read that it will be 6 to 12 months before the supply returns to "normal."

The average gangster is undeterred by gun laws, so I just can't see them worrying about things like magazine limits. The only way to achieve real progress would be to double or triple prison sentences, but our prisons are already overcrowded. It's on the wish list, I'm sure. Obama famously endorsed such a ban as a candidate for office in Illinois, but once he was running for president he claimed that an aide had filled out his response, even though his handwriting was on the questionnaire. Like all politicians, he'll say just about anything to get elected. If you can't give students

No need to get snarky. I just choose to avoid most TV and celebrities who want to lecture me about politics. That includes the Limbaughs and O'Reillys as well as the Michael Moores and Seam Penns. It's just not my cup of tea. More than 2.5 hours elapsed between the first shootings and the last, a good example of the "when seconds count, the police are only minutes away" reasoning that a lot of people use to justify their firearm ownership. Not necessarily true, considering the grandfathering in place. More importantly, see my earlier comments on how ridiculous the criteria that deter

No, I'm saying that piling additional useless legislation on top of existing laws is pointless and serves only to enable politicians to claim that they are "doing something." As for Jon Stewart, I prefer to get my information from news organizations, not comedians or other celebrities. The nation's worst single-shooter attack (Virginia Tech) killed 32 people and only two handguns were used. The shooter carried multiple magazines and managed to shoot more than 50 people before turning the gun on himself. The only thing the VT shooting had in common with the Sandy Hook shooting is that they bot

They're just piling additional legislation on top of existing legislation and calling it "progress." Everything the Sandy Hook shooter did was already illegal under existing laws: possessing a firearm, stealing a firearm, stealing a vehicle, breaking into a school, carrying a firearm on campus, murdering 26 people. Why add more laws to the books that only turn law-abiding citizens into criminals while rolling off the backs of the real bad guys who commit the majority of gun crime: gang members, drug dealers/users and street-level thugs? Stricter gun control laws simply won't work in this nat

There's been an attempt at portraying ardent gun rights supporters as paranoid, trigger happy and ready to massacre at the drop of a hat; statistics prove otherwise. If it will make you happy, I'll rephrase my statement: If every American was as law-abiding and trustworthy as Texans who carry a pistol on them at all times, our nation's murder rate would be amongst the lowest in the world. AND If everyone in the world was as law-abiding and trustworthy as Texans who carry a pistol on them at all times, the world's murder rate would be lowered dramatically. As for training, I underwent a

Four of the 500,000 Texans who hold a concealed handgun license were convicted of murder (not necessarily with firearms) in 2011. Rather than being a bunch of paranoid, trigger happy maniacs only seconds away from shooting up a school or the stranger who knocks on their door, they are a group of exceedingly law-abiding citizens. I've read that a CHL holder is 13 times less likely to commit a crime than the rest of the population. They're even less likely to break the law than cops!

Here in Texas, 500,000+ citizens licensed to carry a concealed handgun were convicted of 4 counts of murder in 2011: http://www.txdps.state.tx.us/RSD/CHL/Reports/ConvictionRatesReport2011.pdf That's a 0.8 murder per 100,000 rate. Now look at that rate compared to the murder rate for the rest of the countries in the world and you'll find that Texans licensed to carry guns have a lower murder rate than almost every country on the planet. When you consider that (presumably) 100% of the Texans are armed while most of the citizens in many nation have been disarmed, the stats become even more damn

That's one of the more useless sites I've seen lately.

I would say that mass shootings themselves are an aberration and absolutely unavoidable even with strict gun control laws. The population of the U.S. is more than 60 times that of Norway, so multiply that single death toll of 77 by 60 and see how rare our mass shootings really are.

And they recently had one of the worst single-shooter massacres on record.

Australia and the UK spring to mind.

You act as if this is already done. I've undergone background checks every time I've purchased a firearm, I've spent hours in the classroom and on the range and been fingerprinted for my concealed handgun license and I pay for a license to hunt -- what more need I do? Then go ask the ex-con on the streets of Chicago with an illegal gun that he's carrying illegally about how many legal hoops he had to jump through to carry a handgun and ask if tougher laws will make him change his ways in the future. Citizens of other nations have been disarmed in the past and it's infinitely more difficult

If you want wolves and mountain lions prowling through your back yard, go for it, but remember that your kids and pets make tasty treats for such predators.

Exactly. Deer are overpopulated in many parts of the country and that leads to the destruction of forests, an unbalanced ecosystem and, eventually, massive deer die offs due to disease and malnutrition. A well-managed hunting program will prevent this from happening.

You completely misunderstand hunters and hunting. Suffice it to say that hunting is vital to maintaining a healthy and sustainable deer population and millions of animals would suffer and die without a hunting program that is overseen and maintained by state conservation agencies. I'd estimate that the 10 hunters in my neighborhood pump at least $50,000 into the conservation effort every year. That's a lot of doe. You should move to Texas. We just opened an 85 MPH toll road.

AR15 variants come with 30-round mags. It's nice to not have to reload/change mags every few seconds at the range while you're trying to zero your weapon. I've never so much as punched another human being, so I'm as big a pacifist as you are. But let's remember that President Obama personally authorizes every drone strike and has more blood on his hands than you and I ever will, so he deserves to be lumped into the list of "those okay with killing humans." Before jumping on the AR15 bandwagon, I wish the president would address the problem with gun crime in his home of Chicago, where gun la