Can you suggest any ideas or book titles about how to prevent or even bring a significant reduction in the frequency of mass shootings?

We're not one of the best countries in the world, far from it and maybe one of the worst, when these ridiculous tragedies keep happening and everyone stands around scratching their heads saying nothing can be done. No other civilized country has problems like this. Should our citizens live with the same kind of risk for loss of life to violence as in such lawless places as Syria and Iraq?

Elmer, I am going to look at the list of donors for every candidate in my area before voting. No one who accepts NRA funding will get my vote. The info is on the FEC website. I am also in a group that supports candidates in other states who do not accept NRA funding.

That's a great idea but I think you may find that list for your area is shorter than it should be.

The IGNORANT talking heads that did the play by play, lauding schools and training... just an FYI schools do drills for fire and intruders but they are not teaching how to get out, how to hide, how to not poke the mad dog!! The coverage of this has been unconscionable. Minors should be OFF LIMITS to these news hounds. They are retraumatizing the entire population of that school with these emotional, confused eyewitness accounts. They should all be fired. The police have to be LIVID. Parents should be crazed over the invasion of privacy these creeps perpetrated on these injured parties. I pray someone starts a class action against them all. Sick, they are sick and we are not much better for letting them!!

I just heard a Florida senator interviewed on NPR. Deflect and babble. He should be ashamed.

Did you ever notice how these people don’t answer the question? They just start talking and going on and on, distracting the listener, and soon you are thinking about what they’re saying and not the fact that there is been no actual reply to the question.

As a parent I am much more concerned that my child may face a semi automatic gun (or any other type) than a news camera. Also, it doesn't seem right that children should be responsible for protecting themselves against gun violence.

Horrifying. Heartrending.

I have no words.

About books, this has a print date of 1998, and it's been some time since I read it, but I highly recommend it.

The Gift of Fear: And Other Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence Gavin de Becker

A couple years back, I was working in a kindergarten classroom, and we had to do a shooter drill. Of course, we didn't tell the children what it was. We told them we were going to play a trick on the principal. She was going to walk in the halls and look in the windows and see if she could see us or hear us. We had to hide in the dark classroom and lock the door so she would think everyone left for the day.

The children thought it was a game but they were so good at it. Within 5 seconds of the teacher saying the code word, all kids went to their assigned spots and kept quiet for over 5 minutes while the principal roamed the halls looking for them, trying doors, peering in windows and knocking. She couldn't see a single student.

Chi, that was such a good idea on drilling with small children! One school where I subbed had the drill but didn't play any pretend games, and still the children were silent for 20! minutes! (Kinders and first-graders.) I can't think but that must have been rather traumatizing for them, but it had to be done. The schools in our districts have used a simple device to counteract locks being shot off. How very sad that such a thing is needed.

Sad that you have to do drills like that for children. My daughter and I were in Las Vegas recently, waiting in a huge crowd of people outside the T-Mobile arena for a concert. First things we both notice are two giant hotels with people looking down at us from the windows, people in two parking garages and two cars with their trunks backed up towards the arena and open. It was a little unnerving. Also, they had a woman on the balcony of the arena with binoculars watching the hotels and garages. My daughter then asked me which way we should run if someone starts shooting at us. We picked the closest cover.

I've also never been patted down in an airport, at least that I can remember. I got patted down twice on this trip. Something alerted in my groin area...so it was a total pat down in front of everyone. One woman asked if I wanted to go to a private area. It didn't bother me, just do it and get it over with. I never understood people getting upset over this. They're trying to protect us. Also had to open my luggage on one of these flights because I brought back a box of sugar cubes. I bought them for my coffee and neither of my brothers use sugar. I guess the box looked like explosives on the scanner.

I wonder how many of these little dead babies in any of the school shootings could of been saved if teachers could of carried. Our babies are sitting ducks in schools. No guns are allowed in most schools, not even the security guards are allowed to carry. So a security guard is suppose to take down a nut case with a sub-automatic gun with his stick? I don't think so. Schools are easy pickins. No defense. So we wait for the police to get there, plan their course of action (while our babies are still being slaughtered) and then take down the suspect and count the dead babies. What has been proved over and over again in various countries and societies "if guns were outlawed only the outlaws will have guns". It's a unrealistic pipe dream that you can eradicate all guns . I have a carrying permit and I will use my gun no ifs, ands or buts if my families lives are threatened. Or should I not carry and tell the outlaw he is not allowed to start shooting us until the police get there. lol You can, but I'm not.

Right. We are going to solve the problem of flooding by... adding more water. Too many guns? Add more!

Who the heck is 'functionthenlook'. Never saw this person before. Who sent you the 'alert' to post this drivel? The gun lobby?

chisue So in your world to stop all flooding we should eliminate all water. Your never going to eliminate water or guns. It works only on paper. Not more guns, just more guns in the wright hands. No never worked or supported a gun lobby.

Teachers being armed? That seems like a disaster. Teachers are not trained police or military. The gun would have to be kept locked away and that wouldn't be really useful in a gunfight. I bet we would have more accidental shootings than mass shootings if we gave guns to all teachers.

It has been said so many times--no one is looking to take guns away from people. No one is stupid enough to suggest we outlaw guns. We just need better control of who is buying guns and what guns, how many. Mentally ill people should NOT be buying guns. My opinion: the great majority of teachers would have no interest in carrying guns.

I'd love to take guns away from people. The more, the better.

Our brilliant Secretary of Education said that schools need to have guns to protect their schools from grizzly bears. Get with it, chi, what could you have been thinking of?

(I never imagined there were so many morons running around that someone like Trump could find enough to fill a Cabinet, a White House staff, and other high level political appointments. It's too bad that the few who seem to have half a brain have been jumping ship at such a rapid rate.)

So tragic. He should be executed, maybe put in front of a firing squad. Last February Trump revoked a bill by Obama that would have made it harder for people with mental illnesses to get guns. It wasn't a fix-all but at least an attempt at a fix from Obama.

phoggie -- Where did you hear that line?

a) Chicago does not have the most restrictive gun control laws in the US.

b) Chicago is a huge city. It is far down the list of per capita gun deaths; highest ranked in per capita deaths are mostly southern cities that are just less populous. (Look it up.)

c) A vast majority of shootings within Chicago's borders occur in the gang infested inner city -- about 8 square blocks on the southeast side.

d) Why would we make it easy for the person who wants a gun to get one. ion. Requiring that all guns be registered should not be rejected because it is not *perfect*. It's 'good enough'. Tell me what harm it would do.

e) Mass shootings like this most recent one are not where the most damage is being done. It's news due to the numbers who died at one time. People are dying and being maimed all over the US on a daily basis, amounting to far more lives lost and ruined. Unregulated Guns ARE the problem.

Maybe the people, like parents for example, who allow their kids to have access to their guns should be held accountable. OK, the mother of the elementary school shooter is dead now, but I recall other cases in which the shooters had access to guns which were not theirs. The kids who take their parent's gun to school: those parents should be criminally liable.

functionthenlook -- Glad to hear you're not on 'the payroll'. However, you must struggle with Logic.

I'm asking for federal laws that guns must be registered to their owners. I'm not asking to eliminate all guns. I'm not asking for piecemeal registration that lets guns be sold across state lines without being registered. (A major problem in Chicago, where guns flow in from lax-law states -- like Indiana, a stone's throw from the city.)

I don't know how you came up with that convoluted water analogy. I said that if you have too much water (or anything), adding more isn't the answer.

Actuality I am very logical. Had to be in my line of work. Your water to gun comparison is not logical . Adding more water is not going to lessen or accelerate the devastation of flooding. Water is not the cause of the flooding. Flooding is cause by man trying to alter his environment. Just like more or less guns are not the cause of shooting deaths, but mans need to kill. Water and guns are objects that do not have brains and as such can not plan death or destruction. Most crimes are committed with illegal guns. Your not going to stop illegal guns no more than anyone is going to stop all illegal drugs. If someone has the money to buy an illegal gun it isn't hard to get one off the streets. And there is always going to be someone there to sell it to them. Stricter gun laws are not going to stop illegal firearms. Yes, I agree to back ground checks before you are able to purchase and resister a gun and it should be the same across all states. I should be able to carry anywhere in the US. Not state by state. But like everything else there are going to be people who fall though the cracks even if it is federally controlled . And if they are denied a registered gun they are just going to buy it off the street anyway. This current shooter did purchase his gun legally and I don't know Florida gun laws, but I didn't read anywhere that he had past crimes or was under psychological care or ever been in institutionalized due to mental illness. If there is no past history, nobody has ESP and predict how a person will use a gun. It is illogical to think if you make gun law stricter that there will be less guns, because legit people will still be able to legally buy guns and the people who can not get them legally will always be able to buy them from the black market.

Adding more water to a flood would certainly accelerate the devastation. The rains during the recent hurricane floods were a big problem. I don't understand that logic.

Even if some people still get guns illegally, it's going to be much more difficult than walking into a store and buying one. They would have to have a connection to the illegal gun trade, and that's a big assumption.

That delay in obtaining a gun could make the difference in some violent crime.

Sweetie it is faster and easier buying a gun off the streets than legally purchasing one.

What a bunch of malarkey.

Function, you should check facts before posting so that you don't appear so uninformed.

Please don't be patronizing, function. I disagree with pretty much everything you say, but we can leave it at that.

Well then I guess I shouldn't take the word of the police for my facts. Apparently they are also uninformed.

Again, you don't have your facts straight. Here's just one thing...

Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel confirmed that accused mass
murderer Nikolas Cruz managed to shoot up the Parkland high school
without ever encountering the school resource deputy. The armed security guard never got the chance to stop the gunman.

“He was on campus and he was armed,” Israel said.

Moonie, I thought you were referring to the ease of acquiring illegal weapons. I am glad that the one and only guard in the whole school was armed. Good for the school district. I did not see that report on the news. But schools in my area do not have armed guards. Our high school is three floors and around 1500 students. Easy pickins for a shooter. The doors are locked but only when class are in session. Anyone who looks like a student or is a student can enter before classes start or after classes end with no problem. Thank goodness mine are out of school. Now I get to worry about the safety of my grand-babies.

Yeah, it would probably take a dozen armed guards to take out someone with an AR-15. Not a fact, just an opinion.

I doubt there are any true statistics to the ease of buying illegal guns on the street. Demographics and all.