Hixter

Same here on both counts, but I suspect that the shooter locked the door, shot the teachers first and then was unopposed. It makes my head (and heart) hurt, too.

It's a reasonable question. That said, are a bunch of 6-year-olds going to tackle a grown man? The president wants a 10-round magazine limit, while the standard magazine for an AR15 is 30 rounds. So that means you have to reload twice (takes one to two seconds) to kill the same amount of people. Yes, there's a brief period where the gunman isn't shooting, but most bystanders would be too busy running, hiding or panicking to think about jumping the shooter. I think I read that the Aurora shooter had a ridiculous 100-round magazine for his AR15. It malfunctioned and he switched to a shotgun

I've never said that and I don't recall anyone else saying it in this forum, either.

It was a (rather poor) attempt at depicting just how unlikely I think the chances of fighting a tyrannical government are. I own guns -- including an "assault" rifle -- but I'm not paranoid. When have I said that I was against those things? I've gone through a background check every time I've purchased a firearm and my concealed handgun license entailed another background check, fingerprinting, 8 hours of classroom instruction and a marksmanship test at a shooting range. You do understand that semiautomatic pistols and "assault" rifles are just like revolvers and hunting rifles, rig

As I said before, nearly every rifle cartridge can penetrate a police officer's vest, so all the government has to do is declare them to be evil, cop-killing bullets and then all the rifle ammo disappears. That includes the stuff people use for hunting, not just "assault" rifles. As for the president's 23 orders, most of them deal with mental health issues and we'll discuss the government's right to know your private medical history in another thread. Right now, I'm concerned with the useless weapons/ammo/magazine bans and restrictions that the president is urging Congress to pass. (New York

I assumed he meant "assault" rifles. In that case, it's an accurate statement. (The same is true for bare hands and feet, too.)

Just about any hunting rifle will penetrate body armor; rifle rounds are fast and pack an enormous punch. The whole "armor piercing bullets" thing is really a handgun issue. I don't think the average gun owner gives such ammunition much consideration. One thing to note is that that kind of ammunition isn't made with lead and is therefore more environmentally friendly. The whole point of this discussion -- at least as far as my posts are concerned -- has been to point out that all gun owners are not fanatics, paranoid nor itching to kill someone. Your "to each, his own" attitude is the app

No it's not. I don't know of any state that allows rimfire .22 when hunting deer. It'd be quite inhumane to do so.

The previous poster had said that American citizens with AR15s would be easily crushed by the military with its superior firepower and I pointed out that lightly armed insurgents have been very successful against the American military over the last few decades. As for airport security: it's a joke. They're always coming up with new, expensive, annoying ways to counter last month's threat, while they leave passengers bunched up and helpless in snaking security lines. If there's ever a big attack on an American airport it will probably take place outside of the secured zone.

Why keep useless laws that make law-abiding citizens criminals while doing nothing to protect them on the books? As for standing up to a tyrannical government (and it could be a foreign government, not our own) I'll ask that you take a look at Afghanistan and see how good of a fight the indigenous people have put up with little more than rifles and fertilizer bombs. They've essentially held their own against the most advanced weapons in the world. I sincerely doubt that Americans have anything to worry about, but the fight would be infinitely more difficult if they were armed with only bolt-

Ok, I'd like to buy an AK47 later this year. I'll let you know how it goes. It's all about baby steps. The government has slowly and steadily limited the options for law-abiding citizens and one only has to look at certain European countries and Australia to see just how far they might go. Americans could be limited to a single, bolt-action .22 and still not be seen as a violation of the Second Amendment by many politicians. The silver lining is that our nation has a strong history of switching out parties in Washington every few years, so a Republican president will hopefully be able to u

It's a slippery slope. You buy a semi-auto pistol for home defense but then you get around to obtaining a concealed handgun license and you realize that the first pistol is too bulky to carry, so you buy a small revolver that fits in your pocket. Then your wife decides that she doesn't like handguns, so you buy a shotgun for home protection. Then one Christmas your mother-in-law surprises you with the gift of an AR15 and you use it for hunting but decide that you'd like something for bigger game, so you purchase a hunting rifle. You decide that the kids should be taught to handle guns safely,

He was well within his rights under Texas law.

Ok, show me the breakdown of murders by firearm in the United States. It'll get uncomfortable when it comes to touchy areas like race, the legality of the murderers' possession of a firearm, the murderers' criminal history and things like gang affiliation and drug use, but then again it's a touchy subject in general. When all is said and done, I'm fairly confident that the stats will show that law-abiding Americans are just that, while gangsters and convicts and drug dealers are ignoring any and all gun laws while murdering people at an alarming rate.

From what I've read, every mass shooting in the U.S. other than the one that wounded Gabby Giffords has taken place in a location where civilians were not allowed to carry concealed handguns. But why the focus on spree shootings and "assault" rifles when they make up less than 1% of the nation's murders?

A better analogy would be the enactment of prohibition in order to save the nation from the evils of drink, just like bans on "assault" rifles and magazines are designed to save us from spree killers. It simply won't work.

Well, since we all agree that gun laws, drug laws and marriage laws are oppressive to law-abiding citizens and should be reduced rather than increased, I guess there's not much more to say about the subject(s).

Let's remember that there are plenty of kooks on both sides of the issue. Neither side has a monopoly on them, but they're really nothing more than background noise used as fodder for political actions. As for "not severely hurting anyone", take a look at how many people have died in the pursuit of manufacturing, selling and using drugs and then ask yourself how more legislation will solve the problem. Then think ask yourself how more gun laws will solve the problem.

I've heard a lot about it because I live in San Antonio. This morning's news also had a piece about a guy in a nice neighborhood a mile away from me who shot 2 guys who were breaking into his car. As far as I'm concerned, they knew the risks and got what was coming to them. With the exception of registering my firearms with the government, I'm fine with that, as it's already the law. Not sure why those subjects were mentioned in a discussion about gun control, but I agree with you. So imagine you're a happily married gay man in Denver who likes to do a few bong hits in his own home. News

My kids were not mentally ill and they'd already left home. The Newtown shooter was already banned from possessing firearms because of his mental illness, "assault" rifles were already illegal in CT and existing laws forbade him from entering the school with a firearm and murdering his mother and the people at the school but, hey, more laws will keep things like this from happening in the future. Just look at a city like Chicago if you want to see how useless gun laws are when it comes to keeping bad people from shooting other people.

For what it's worth, I decided that I didn't want guns in the house while children were present. I didn't purchase a firearm until my kids were well into their twenties and old enough to buy guns of their own.

There are very few things that a person needs, but there are many things that he might want. Why I wanted it: 1) I spent several years in the Army and the M16-type platform is what I'm most familiar with. It feels comfortable and familiar. 2) I wanted something to hunt deer, hogs and varmints with. 3) It's a very accurate rifle that's fun to shoot at the range. A few additional, salient points: 1) I have no criminal record and I'm not a fan of the government's actions that restrict and criminalize the actions of law-abiding citizens like me while ignoring the fact that real crimin

On the day of the Aurora shootings I told myself that I would buy the AR15 that I'd been procrastinating about if I heard the president even mention reinstating the 1994 ban. Didn't take long and at last count, 7 of my neighbors had done the same thing. Now the shotgun that I've been eyeing for several months is out of stock all over the country. Hopefully the panic buying will subside soon as it's not easy to find .223/5.56 ammo at the moment.

There are $79 rooms at the Best Western in Bennington, VT. Looks like it's about 20 miles from the museum.