I didn't read this until now. I know how they always go. I know you can't change anyone's mind. I live in a very rural, remote spot. No near neighbors. I had 4 or 5 dogs at the time this happened.....one was a pit bull. Around 5 a.m., woke to dogs raising a racket. Got out of bed, wearing only a t shirt, to see a man walking from my dining room to my kitchen. He said, "Can I use your phone?" I said no and went to my bedroom and yelled at my husband, get the gun...someone is in here. Husband came out naked, except for the pistol, man said, No! And ran out the door and jumped off the porch, injuring his ankle. Limped off as fast as he could. He ended up on the other side of some woods, under a neighbor's house, but she also had a gun and loaded him into her truck in the back to take him to the hospital but on the way out, met the sheriff deputies who got in a shoot out with his partner who had driven out in the middle of a hay field. Turns out they were from Louisiana. Why they ended up on a dead end road where I live, not sure but not to use my phone, I am sure of that. It is dangerous to walk into someone's house like that. My husband didn't shoot him because he was running away. He did fire 2 shots in the ground....it was dark, no one could see anything, but it encouraged him to keep moving as fast as he could, and he ran thru woods so thick that it ripped his shorts off.

We don't hunt. Not opposed, just don't care for game. I don't kill anything if I don't have to. To me, guns are a tool....there if you need them. However, I am not keen on being called a Neanderthal by someone who claims to be so liberal and is so narrow minded, but I will say this.....if you want to see a bunch of blue states turn red....keep on talking about gun control. That is a huge issue for a lot of former democrats. I don't have the answer but I don't see how taking guns from law abiding citizens will affect anything. There will always be mentally unstable people and people who are a danger to society. I don't think it can ever be avoided. Sure...limit their access to guns, but they will find a way to get them. If not guns....they will use another means. The pipe bombs in Santa Fe didn't hurt anyone because the police were there and were able to secure that area. Anyway, it doesn't matter what I think and I probably didn't need to read this or write anything.

Marilyn said:There will always be mentally unstable people and people who are a danger to society. I don't think it can ever be avoided. Sure...limit their access to guns, but they will find a way to get them. If not guns....they will use another means.

Dear Marilyn -- that was a terrifying experience and thank god that your and your husband had a pistol for protection. Most Americans understand that situation. So, then you say, "they will find a way to get them" -- maybe some will. How about if we get started in controlling who should have them and punish crimes with guns severely. You know, just for a start. Just to do something that every other country in the world does. How would those laws have prevented you and your husband from having a pistol or a rifle out there in the country where you need to protect yourself? Why is it so hard to even start talking about some legislation? Why is the only solution, "no solution"? Why does the conversation so often start from the position: "They want to take OUR guns away" when that truly is not what is on the table?

At amylou's demand I did try to look up the number of home invasion murders which doesn't seem to be a tracked statistic as such, but the number of homicides committed during burglaries seems to average somewhere around 80 to 110 per year across the United States.

Whereas the number of deaths due to drowning in a bathtub is about 335 per year, which is over three time the number of "home invasion murders". So anyone who keeps a gun in their house to protect themselves from scary burglars might want to use that gun to preemptively shoot holes in their bathtub since that is three times as likely to cause your death.

Excellent point bleusblue, I don't want people to miss it.

"Why does the conversation so often start from the position: "They want to take OUR guns away" when that truly is not what is on the table?"

I am all for that, blues. I wish in many instances laws on the books were more closely adhered to., also. I also wish when there are warnings about a potential problem, they were taken seriously. The Parkland shooter had multiple warnings about him....the deputy on scene did not engage him like he should have. I was very surprised that a shooting happened in Santa Fe. There were police there when it happened. I knew the school had officers. They didn't cower outside waiting for reinforcements. They engaged him 4 min. into the shooting, but still so many casualties.

I am not worried about anyone taking my guns. I have a paltry amount....a shotgun, a .22 rifle, and a .32 magnum revolver. The thing with people who do fear that is they think once "they" go after one type of gun....then it is only a matter of time until they go after more. You saw where Elmer wrote he would like no private citizen to have firearms. Lots of people feel that way but I believe they are a minority and that is why I said blue states will turn red when that becomes a priority of the left. Maybe not all but most. I don't believe there is any issue that would bring people out to vote, like that one would.

Hi Marilyn -- yes their fear is that doing any gun control at all will snowball until no guns are permitted. That's a pretty odd position considering that hundreds of children have died (thousands?) in school shootings, not to mention hundreds of innocent adults and yet the most visible support for legal limits is coming from kids -- high school kids demonstrating.

Since you aren't worried that your own guns will be taken away, can you see the value in at least supporting some serious legislation? You said "it doesn't matter what I think."

bob_cville thanks for the good laugh. I hope to run into you around town one of these days.

Abortion rights have to do with gun control how?

And for the millionth time, most people don't want guns confiscated from responsible gun owners. The Hitler comparisons are completely ridiculous.

I dunno, but then it’s often claimed that the liberals are pro-abortion when they’re actually just pro-choice with the choice being made by the individual whose body it is.

So concerned with telling women what to do with their own bodies, and clamoring to eliminate the access to safe medical providers of abortion that they forget about all the kids who keep losing their lives to gun violence. Those kids must not be worth protecting at any cost I guess.

Most people here are not advocating taking away all the guns. Why go there. A discussion that stays rational stands a better chance of success.

To me, it just seems so easy to explain why America has so many more gun deaths, than other countries, when all of us have citizens that suffer from similar types of mental illness. 'Death' obviously occurs from any myriad of causes, such as disease, accident, old age, etc. 'Gun deaths' can only be caused by guns. Less guns, less gun deaths.

So you are not really interested in reading people who disagree with you? You have an opinion and are sticking to it. Georgia's George Washington quote, assuming it is real, is saying that it is the government itself that needs to be afraid of an armed population. Go back to the revolution and the King tried to disarm the colonies. The amendment to the constitution was designed to discourage that possibility in the future. At the time, the people were armed with the very latest technology in weaponry. Nowadays, most of us do not own an F-16 or an aircraft carrier.

To me, the federal government needs to stay out of the discussion. This is a state by state issue. If you disagree with what your state has decided, then you have 49 other choices for more favorable places to live.

Curious, the 2nd amendment doesn’t address the type of gun disciplined civilians have the right to possess. I think the fact that the word DISCIPLINED is part of Washington’s view on the subject of civilians and firearms is an interesting concept.

For those who are against gun control on grounds of criminals being able to obtain guns regardless, so it’s vital for law abiding citizens to have the means to defend themselves in kind...Where do criminals get their guns? Through a number of illegal routes; stealing them, having persons with the legal ability to purchase guns do so on their behalf, via private parties and marketplaces which are free of oversight nor subject to the same rules under the laws regarding gun sales, etc.

if someone is arrested and charged with domestic violence, they have committed a crime, should they get to keep any guns they may own? Should they have no restrictions on purchasing a gun?

We don’t have to throw up our hands and let whoever wants a gun to have a gun. We can do more to keep guns out of the hands of criminals - yeah some may evade the law and get ahold of weapons anyway but that’s no excuse for sitting around doing NOTHING. And whinging about any sort of gun control being a plot to disarm the entire country, leaving law abiding citizens defenseless against all the armed criminals who have black market guns, or pipe bombs, or machetes, or trucks to drive into and over a crowd in a public area, is pretty much equal to doing NOTHING while domestic terrorists go to churches, schools, night clubs, and concerts to shoot a bunch of innocent people. Some people shouldn’t be allowed to own guns, period.

When it’s left to each state, we end up with some states having lots of gun control and rules about guns written into state laws, and other states where it’s like the Wild West and there’s guns for all.

I noticed the "disciplined" part of that as well. Collectively, we aren't very disciplined with our guns. I wonder what he would have to say about so many kids being killed with them.

Guns aren't actually the problem, although easy access to them is certainly a factor. What has happened to society that someone would even consider taking an innocent human life, whether they use a gun, a vehicle, a knife, or whatever? Personally, I believe it's the overall decay of society, parents who don't care, 'easy' violence in movies, TV, and video games, and copy-cat killers who see how famous one can become. I remember a while back they stopped broadcasting images of mass murderers, but that idea seems to have been shelved, and once again, each killer gets their wish of being a household name. I don't want to make this a religious debate, but I believe we are reaping the results of a largely Godless society.

It may not be a popular opinion, but I agree with you.

If you could take away every gun in America, it wouldn't stop the violence:

- My son-in-law, who is British, says that they can't own guns in England ... and as a result, knife fights on the streets are a problem.

- Remember that Timothy McVeigh, the man responsible for the Oklahoma City bombing, killed more people than any school shooter (or work shooter, mall shooter, etc.) ... and he didn't have a gun.

As for kids thinking they'll become "a household name", that may be a part of their thinking. I've read that some kids who commit suicide have a fantasy about seeing their parents /bullies /whomever grieve over their deaths. They imagine being around to "witness" it all and somehow being vindicated. I can imagine shooters thinking in this way too.

While knife fights are sad on an individual level, they are not capable of the type of mass violence that guns are.

In my opinion, bombs and terrorist activities are an entirely different issue. Many other countries deal with terrorists while school shootings are a nearly uniquely American phenomenon.

These mass shootings are intended to create terror in those who are the targets, the shooters are domestic terrorists.

One thing my wife feels is a factor is social media. When I was a kid, I was bullied at school, both physically and mentally. But once I went home, it stopped. There was no Facebook or Instagram or whatever to bombard us with social bullying 24/7. I imagine those sites put a lot of pressure on kids, and kids react different ways. Couple that with desensitization by over exposure to violence, and you have a potent mix. The guns have been around a long time, but something has changed. When I was a kid, we watched Dick Van Dyke trip coming into his living room. Now we watch Red Redington casually shoot anyone who gets in his way- good or bad- with a smirk on his face.

Thanks again to the coward who decided to blank out my comment rather than engage the thought.

In the deleted comment, I suggested to ingeogia that I thought he ought to be able to consider the issue with greater depth and nuance than the photo-soundbytes he posted would suggest.

I agree that decreasing access to guns will do nothing against bombings, stabbings and any other method of killing. It will only decrease access to killing by guns...but that's the most common type of killing occurring in your country.

"- Remember that Timothy McVeigh, the man responsible for the Oklahoma City bombing, killed more people than any school shooter (or work shooter, mall shooter, etc.) ... and he didn't have a gun."

And One more example where laws were changed after the bombing, regulating the type and amount of the fertilizer used in the making of the weapon used. So it would be harder to do the same type of killing today.

ingeorgia -- that's a clever poster but nothing changed -- except there are more guns than ever and everybody and his brother can buy them. Mass shootings were not prevented by KNOWING that everybody had guns in the pickup. There just were no mass shootings to defend against. Mass murderers are not afraid of dying -- they usually commit suicide. The Santa Fe murderer certainly knew that there was armed security in the school. The armed security was in the school, not in a pickup outside. He went in anyway.

I remember 1966 -- the tower shooter -- not a school shooting but the first mass shooting of strangers that I'm aware of -- not a historian. We were SHOCKED SHOCKED SHOCKED. There was no precedent.

It wasn't a school shooting but just yesterday near my town, a four-year-old picked up a handgun in his house, and thought it was a toy, and shot his two-year-old brother in the chest, killing him.

Liberals... do what makes you feel good, take God out of schools, okay to burn the flag, disrespect the President, disrespect anyone and anything you do no agree with, no personal responsibility, your body your choice to murder your baby instead of being responsible about it, want to be a boy instead of a girl? no problem, celebrate deviancy , march in pussy hats and vagina costumes or half naked, celebrate thugs and murder of police, have no respect for yourselves or anyone, actors, television, movies, celebrities advocate abortion, violence etc. The news and so called reporters, taking things out of context, making things up and out right lying. Rap songs talking about murder, calling women names and they are celebrated and glorified. Children being taught liberalism in schools, colleges not allowing conservative or Christian speakers ... good grief and you wonder what is wrong?????? Look in the mirror.

Oh bob, how tragic!

Sad Bob. And I bet the gun owner was/is a law-abiding person aside from their careless gun storage practices. Better the gun had never been there at all.

Bob how very sad. And preventable.

We never had guns in the house when we had kids at home. It was too scary for me to imagine the possibilities. We now have a gun safe and use that plus a deadbolt on the closet door where its stored when the grand-kids are here.

It hasn't been announced yet, but I'll bet they had the gun to "protect" themselves from burglars and armed intruders. I'll also bet that in the entire time they've owned the gun there hasn't been one.

I'm only half-joking when I think the NRA's solution to this particular instance would be that the two-year-old ought to have had a gun as well so he could defend himself.

The fundamental problem with having a gun nearby and accessible when there are only adults in the house is that it only takes one moment of forgetfulness to forget to lock the gun up when others are around. You could remember perfectly 99 times but that 100th time could be the tragedy. Even the most responsible of us forget very important things sometimes.

People will argue that they won't have time to to unlock a gun if they have an intruder or something but I think the stats show accidental shootings are much higher than home invasion shootings.

Reminder: We are discussing GUN Violence here -- not knives, vehicles or Kool-Aid. We're talking about guns because guns are the instruments being used to shoot tens of thousands of Americans annually with great certainty of lethal outcome. Guns are made to be lethal. Knives, vehicles and Kool-Aid are not *intended* to be used to kill or maim.

Gun deaths include a lot of 'successful' suicides. There's no chance to rescue the desperate person attempting suicide when he uses this instantly lethal means.

I agree that decreasing access to guns will do nothing against bombings, stabbings and any other method of killing. It will only decrease access to killing by guns...but that's the most common type of killing occurring in your country.

Most common, sure -- but if those sickos who kill couldn't get guns, they'd move on to another method.

In my opinion, bombs and terrorist activities are an entirely different issue. Many other countries deal with terrorists while school shootings are a nearly uniquely American phenomenon.

Disagree. We don't have a gun problem; we have a violence problem. Guns are just the most common weapon.

the shooters are domestic terrorists.

I never thought about phrasing it that way, but you're right.

One thing my wife feels is a factor is social media. When I was a kid, I was bullied at school, both physically and mentally. But once I went home, it stopped. There was no Facebook or Instagram or whatever to bombard us with social bullying 24/7.

Agree. Social media is awful for my high schoolers.

It wasn't a school shooting but just yesterday near my town, a four-year-old picked up a handgun in his house, and thought it was a toy, and shot his two-year-old brother in the chest, killing him.

I don't think anyone defends /respects irresponsible gun owners.

It hasn't been announced yet, but I'll bet they had the gun to "protect" themselves from burglars and armed intruders. I'll also bet that in the entire time they've owned the gun there hasn't been one.

Two of my close family members have used guns -- successfully -- to protect themselves. Not at home, but around town:

I have one relative who works for the utilities, and he regularly goes out into bad parts of town at all hours of the night. Most recently a couple guys closed in on him /were obviously setting up to rob him while he pumped gas into his work van. He pulled out his gun and said, "YOU LEAVE NOW" -- the phrase that his gun safety instructor emphasized -- and they ran. He has shared half a dozen similar stories with us.

My mother-in-law was coming out of Lowes just about dusk. A couple thugs came up and were going to take her keys /her car ... maybe worse ... she knew it was a sketchy place, and she had her hand in her purse /her hand on her gun. She pulled it out, and they ran.

I won't talk about my relative who's a police officer. I don't think his gun use is representative of all of us.

People will argue that they won't have time to to unlock a gun if they have an intruder or something but I think the stats show accidental shootings are much higher than home invasion shootings.

I don't worry about home invasions. They're not common, and armed invasions are quite rare.

Mrs. Pete, if it's a violence problem and not a gun problem, why are Americans so much more violent than other people who also have access to social media, video games, drugs, movies, bad parents, etc.?

"... take God out of schools, okay to burn the flag..."

Those are actually quite conservative Supreme Court decisions. The founders were zealous advocates of the separation of church and state. Keeping prayers from being lead by teachers, administrators, and coaches in public schools is exactly what they had in mind.

No one has free speech if the most unpopular speech such as flag burning, is disallowed. Again, quite conservative.

No, Mrs. Pete, they would not 'find other means' that are so instantly lethal. 'Other means' would save most people from instant death by a lethal weapon. That's why we're talking about GUN violence.

'Other means' would let us intervene when depressed people think about killing themselves.

'Other means' would require more time for the angry or frightened person's rational mind to kick in before a shot is fired. 'Other means' are not by their nature instantly lethal, like guns.

There is probably some truth in various stories about gun defense against evil-doers. We have only the story teller's take on whether there was a 'situation'; whether the 'situation' was dangerous; whether the presence of a gun was the required to defuse it.

Why was your MIL in this sketchy place? I'm glad the 'thugs' didn't decide they wanted her gun more than her car. Maybe they're still thinking about it.

In nations with gun controls, if your relative demonstrated his need to carry a gun in order to do his job, he could receive a special license. He'd need to pass tests on gun use and safety and have references showing he has the ability to act rationally. (It's dangerous enough to have trained police who cannot manage self-control; we don't need citizens with no training carrying guns.)

disrespect anyone and anything you do no agree with

It appears to me that you are the one not respecting those who you disagree with by implying 'look in the mirror' that they are responsible for all the negative things in the world. I just don't think you can past all the world's problems on liberals.

celebrate deviancy

You say that as if it is a bad thing. I don't think we should all think exactly alike. Deviancy covers a lot of territory, a person who prefers apple pie when everyone else in the room is eating peach pie deviates from the norm but so what?

Liberals... do what makes you feel good, take God out of schools, okay to burn the flag, disrespect the President

Ingeorgia, if you're going to be so critical, at least don't be a hypocrite. You criticize others for disrespecting the President but I have seen you refer to President Obama as "obamination" several times, including when he was still in office. I guess your comment only applies when you like the President. I don't like Trump at all but I would never call him names like you call Obama. I'm more respectful than that.

The generalizations you make in the rest of your post are sad. I had no idea that rap music is a liberal thing. I'm happy to support keeping religion out of the government and whatever gender people choose to identify as. I support peaceful protesting. I have never celebrated the death of police officers and I find that implication disgusting and incredibly offensive. It's also a downright lie, which is funny since you also call liberals liars.

I don't believe the government should be able to force women to have children, especially if the children are rape consequence, endanger the life of the mother, or are terminal themselves. I recently read about a woman who found out in her second trimester that her child will be born with a severe deformity and die immediately upon birth. Her doctors recommended termination but Texas passed a law that prohibits insurance companies from covering abortions unless it's a medical emergency. Since this child could be carried to term, this woman has a choice to either carry this terminal child to term or pay $8,000 to pay for it herself. They want to force this woman to carry a baby she knows won't live for another 5 months and make the child suffer during childbirth only to die shortly afterwards. Are you okay with that? It's barbaric and inhumane for both mother and child. These are the sort of things we will face if we let the government make these decisions.

I'm not pro-abortion. No one is pro-abortion. I don't like when women use abortion casually like birth control. But I think it's worse for the government to make decisions about women's bodies.

Of course I'm the hypocrite LOL. Sorry, saying apple pie preference is like sexual deviancy is ridiculous and you know it. It's like saying the 2nd amendment doesn't cover modern weapons... might as well say there were no raidios t.v., cell phones, computers etc. so you have no right to freedom of speech while using them....... typical of liberals though. Of course you think killing a baby is okay and those of us who pay taxes should be made to pay for abortions. All you can do is twist words, make up things, compare apples to oranges, post skewed polls and justify whatever immoral things are happening

This is hysterical! Only somthing called "Gunhub" could come up with such a warped comparison between money and children. Remind me how this supposedly ties into Willie Wonka.

Making armed camps of schools is not only obscene for the anxiety it creates in children -- in everyone -- but it's completely worthless. How many guards per capita? Will there be barbed wire?

"Oh, mommy, I don't want to go HOME. We are only safe in school!"

celebrate deviancy

saying apple pie preference is like sexual deviancy

Well this is an interesting conversation for a slow Sunday morning.

First of all, you did not specify sexual deviancy in your post above, you merely seemed to be dissing the celebration of deviancy in general. So an apple pie eater in a room full of peach pie eaters does deviate from the norm.

Do all allegedly deviant acts have to pass the ingeorgia test to either be permissible or impermissibly deviant? Who decides what is deviant and what is not deviant.? Is it deviant to dress up in leather and whip your partner? What about when Stormy spanked Donald?

What exactly is sexual deviancy? Is some sex wrong? My own opinion is that yes, some sex is wrong and I do not think that anyone would be able to persuade me otherwise, so I can see how perhaps you might be unpersuadeable in your own views.

The sex acts I see as wrong are sex acts between adults and children, and between adults and animals, because both of those groups cannot give informed consent, and snuff sex that involves killing an animal as a way to achieve sexual excitement.

But that leaves a lot of leeway. Perhaps some people think that there is a moral component to certain kinds of sex, I certainly have moral objections in the examples I gave. I guess that is different than pie, if they ran out of apple I'd eat peach without a second thought.

But then again I have preferences (excluding my moral objections) to the kinds of touch I like, it seems to me that everyone likes some things more than others, so maybe pie is back in the running.

"All you can do is twist words, make up things, compare apples to oranges, post skewed polls and justify whatever immoral things are happening."

You really don't see the hypocrisy here? You say we make stuff up yet you avoid responding to any of the specific examples given, choosing instead to start in on the blanket generalizations and insults accusing liberals of all the bad things in the world. You are twisting everything with your generalizations, saying all liberals celebrate police deaths and think killing babies is ok.

The world isn't black and white. It is possible to dislike one thing, but to believe the alternative is worse.

Did anyone ever think that "gun control" is completely different from "confiscating your weapons"? Canada has gun control. We own weapons. We own more weapons per capita than Americans do. What our gun control laws up here do is they hold someone accountable for their actions. Not just the person who fired that weapon, but also the person who sold that weapon illegally. Or the person who did not lock up their weapon according to our laws. When 4 RCMP officers were murdered in Alberta, the man who sold the farmer the weapons that were used, was arrested and sent to jail. When the father of a 12 year old boy was found to have left his loaded rifle out for his son and friends to get a hold of, causing one of the boys to fire that weapon that killed his 12 year old boy (at his own birthday party!), the father was arrested. My kid owns weapons. My nephew owns weapons. More than one person needs. They like to target practice. They don't own them for protection. The weapons are locked in a safe, unloaded. The bullets are locked in another safe. AS PER OUR GUN CONTROL LAWS.

Everyone is so terrified of losing their "rights to bare arms". But nobody seems to give two poops about all the children who are dying because of that. I firmly believe that right to bare arms was meant for the military, not the average Joe.

It's all I'm saying on this matter. The world is watching how your children are dying every day in a place that should be safe. Now they pretty much have to be frisked and searched before they enter a school. You want metal detectors and armed guards at the doors. That sounds like prison.

What is going to school under those circumstances doing to kids and their mental health? There are no guards anywhere in schools in my city. No parent is afraid to send their child to school. No one has to think about bulletproof backpacks or carrying an arsenal of rocks in their packs to protect themselves. American students are growing up with a siege mentality as if they lived in a war torn country.

In Canada our govt and media celebrate our diversity instead of teaching citizens to fear the “other”. We don’t assume immigrants are here to rape, rob and murder us.

We don’t worry if a brown or black person walks toward that us we are in danger.

The US’s culture of fear goes hand in hand with their gun culture. The consequences are tragic and will affect the minds of all growing up under these conditions.

We [Canadians] own more weapons per capita than Americans do.

In its recent report on international gun ownership, CNN states that "Americans own more guns per capita than residents of any other country. The number of firearms available to American civilians is estimated at
around 310 million, according to a 2009 National Institute of Justice
(NIJ) report." Canadian statistics are not included in the CNN report, but Wikipedia reports ownership to be 30.8 per 100 residents. CNN - US gun statistics