I couldn’t bear watching the news anymore. I went to see “Lincoln” at the neighborhood multiplex. Sat through about six previews of coming attractions. Every one of them featured guns and violence. One was about 1930s gangs. Lots of shooting and killing.
I kept wondering why Hollywood glamorizes violence. Why are guns such a symbol of power and excitement, a sexualized object?
And we wonder why so many people turn to guns to express their inner turmoil, why so many deranged people think they can be as “glamorous” as the killers onscreen.
When will Hollywood and the rest of the media recognize their responsibility for the cult of violence?
When do we ban guns? Why not?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
We don’t want guns banned. We should be allowed to have them to protect our loved ones. I would be very thankful if the man next door protected me if someone broke into my house and that can happen. There will always be wars, b/c man is evil.
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Yikes – you’re serious, aren’t you?
As Jed Bartlett said (sorry to quote fiction) “They weren’t born this way.” (To you point – they weren’t born with “evil”).
And those with so much hate and hurt can get help – but sadly it’s easier for them to get guns than mental health care or a working social services system.
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Yep, she’s serious. Scary, huh?
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No, msavage it’s not scary.
I can’t ever imagine having to use one of my hunting/clay bird guns on a human (I don’t even hunt that much, just an occasional duck/goose and small game). But If I had to I would. If you’ve ever been confronted by someone with a gun and you don’t have one (and I have been confronted that way) you might understand what I am saying.
“When do we ban guns? Why not?”
There is a reason for the Second Amendment. Since the “government” is actually comprised of humans why should that subset be the only ones to have access to weapons. There are very legitimate reasons for owning guns, hunting, self-protection, and/or keeping that subset of humans called government from infringing on all of our other rights (although they are almost all gone now through the various “security” legislation).
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Remember Dunblane.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunblane_school_massacre
I am so proud of teachers who protect our children. Some die, trying.
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We don’t ban guns because Americans love the John Wayne image. Asking Americans to give up their guns is like asking them to give up their pets; maybe the pets would go first. I doubt even the little bodies of 20 children will make any difference.
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Oh give it up Sylvia… The US has 11000 gun murders a year… The next closest country
has a mere fraction of that. Why do you think that’s the case? Is it because there are proportionally more crazy people in the US? Does that make any sense? When’s the last time you heard an actual instance where someone with a gun STOPPED someone else with a gun? The gun lobby has brainwashed you. Countries that ban guns have a fraction of the gun deaths. Thats a fact. Yours is conjecture, a baseless hypothesis. What will have to happen to push the US to TRY a gun ban? 20 dead 5 year olds isn’t enough?
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“When’s the last time you heard an actual instance where someone with a gun STOPPED someone else with a gun?”
See: http://www.cato.org/guns-and-self-defense/
No, it’s not the guns.
Our country specializes in death and destruction around the world-see the thousands of dead children from the US’s illegal, immoral wars of aggression. See the amount of resources we waste in doing so. What else would you expect in a country that glorifies violence and death to the degree this country does? Blind nationalism as is promoted in this country is the main cause-praise the lord and pass the ammunition.
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i think we need to look at what separates America from all the other countries. All the other countries go to American movies, play violent video games. Where are we different? We work much longer, for less each year. People can’t make ends meet. We have the highest income disparity by far in the industrialized world, we have the highest childhood poverty rate. I met someone last night who was a teacher who had a son with cancer. Her crappy insurance that cost her 1/3 her pay each month destroyed them financially. We don’t have mental health services. People with severe emotional problems can walk right into a gun shop and buy an assault weapon. We have a sick culture that doesn’t respect teachers but glorifies thugs who play sports.
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I certainly don’t want to oversimplify, but I think it has a lot to do with “rugged invididualism”. There’s such a sense in this country that we are in it alone, every man for himself, we’re solely responsible for our own success or failure, even our own life or death, etc. Somehow most other countries still seem to understand, at least more generally and broadly, that we’re all in this together and “no man is an island”.
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Why do we have a Department of War (it’s never really made the change from that, despite the claims) and not a Department of Peace? We must all become peace makers, workers in a non-violent struggle to end the madness of violence. Gathering together, singing songs of peace…
Tomorrow night a candle light vigil for us all.
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Diane – thank you for keeping the topic front and center. Maybe the rest of America will get that, too. How many of these does it take before someone in power has the courage to take it on. And the media? Creating fear. Copy cats or just accessiblity of guns – it’s time to stop the cycle of violence and start the cycle of systemic care. It’s not like this is some new phenomenon.
First experience for me and colleagues who will never forget? 30 years ago next month. Junior high school murder-suicide. No CNN. No helicopters. No sensationized media. Literally wrote the book on “counselors will be available…” in a weekend. So days like these – hearts go out to grieving families and friends and colleagues of those in Connecticut.. as they did in Colorado and Arizona and Oregon and and and – and I just wish the country would learn – and wake up and get a voice.
So… as I wrote on another post,
Dear Mr. Obama:
Move education, obsession with testing, and oppressive reform to domestic issue #3.
Same point: you don’t need to worry about politics or getting re-elected or being called a socialist. So –
#1 Go after the NRA – go after the guns. It may only be a dent but someone has to turn the tide and only you can get it started.
#2 Mental health care! Where is that in universal coverage? Easier to get guns than mental health care. Take the billions from Race to the Top and spend on incentives for community, town, social services agencies, and schools to work together under the same roof and provide systemic care for kids and adults.
And – fix the broken social service agencies. How many thousands of CPS (child protection services) and hot line calls are turned down – cases not accepted because they don’t have the staff. Families in poverty are in stress. Children are at risk.
You’re the most powerful person in the country – on the planet. Stop the guns and start the mental health care and actual social services that work. What have you got to lose when there are lives to save?
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Amen.
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that is a really sad statement from someone who is a public school superintendent; maybe it is time to retire and enter politics for real
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Washington Post • Twelve facts about guns and mass shootings in the United States
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Diane — I can’t bear watching the NEWS anymore. My heart aches for those babies that were gunned down. My heart aches for those parents. I am an elementary principal. This tragedy is EVERY principals worst nightmare. We take our jobs very seriously. The responsibilities are enormous. I am thinking about the principal that died. I am thinking about the little boy in my school that died in his sleep last year. A fifth grader, 10years old. Loved hockey. Loved art. Was in the band. His classmates needed counseling because they were afraid to fall asleep. They were afraid they too, might not wake up. I can only imagine what they are feeling tonight. I am already preparing for what we may have to face on Monday morning. Babies were killed. Never to enjoy their childhood. Our responsibilities as educators are emotionally, intellectually and physically exhausting. Let’s join hands across the United States and pray for the souls of these babies. Let’s pray for their families that they will find the strength and the will to go on.
Let’s stop the torture of standardized testing. We know it’s wrong. Let’s not be afraid to stand up and speak out. Let’s leave the carrots for the reindeer and put the sticks aside. Let’s stop THE RACE TO NOWHERE. We are leaving the child behind . To threaten schools with the loss is state aid is a punishment that is NOT deserved.
We Shall Overcome.
Marge
A caval donato non si guarda in bocca!
Marge
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Slate • Speed Kills
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Did you happen to catch the interview with the one teacher (one amazing wonderful woman) who shepherded her class into a bathroom and kept them all assured that they would be ok? She told them, “i want you all to know I love you.” She expressed to the interviewer that her thinking was that she was afraid they would die and she wanted to make sure that if they were that the last thing they would remember hearing was not the gunshots, but the sound of someone telling them that they were loved. “This” in this era of teacher bashing.
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By writing from the heart, you got right to the heart of the matter.
That teacher showed something that no standardized test can measure, that no rank-and-yank/stacked ranking system can produce, that no shaming mechanism like merit pay can incentivize. Courage. Honor. Compassion. Selflessness. All in the face of what must have been mind-numbing fear and uncertainty.
This is precisely the kind of person the privatizers and charterites find so unbearably resistant to their edudeformation schemes.
My wife just put it very well: she showed us all her “love of teaching.”
And the edubullies want to replace individuals like her with those who regard teaching as a short-term job rather than a career?
I think not!
🙂
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And one her little boys she hid in the bathroom said to her, I know karate, I can go out first.
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My vision of a well regulated militia = anything more than a .22 locked up at an armory, run by a citizen militia that trains on a schedule. Private gun clubs should be classified the same way, as something of a co-op, with elected citizen boards that visit, review and check their stock, which should be kept on site and co-ordinated with the militia stock and its training. Defense in invasion and overthrow of tyranny are the goals of Amendment #2.
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So, let me get this straight.
You wanted to get away from the horrific tragedy of the elementary school shootings…of the carnage of guns…and you did what? You went to see “Lincoln”…president during (by the numbers) a war that cost more Americans their lives…mostly by guns…than any other war in history? Lincoln…the President whose Presidency was ended by…no big guess here…a deranged person with a gun! I see no pattern here.
Can we please, please, please stop mouthing the fatally flawed logic of the moronic banter: “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” No, stopping the sale of assault weapons will not, overnight, stop violence…by guns or otherwise. But it’s a great start.
If people need to go hunting, I’m thinking if they insist it will take an automatic weapon that spews hundreds of rounds in the blink of any eye to bring down that squirrel or deer, you’re biggest problem is not hunting game…your biggest problem is that you’ve watched “Alien” one too many times.
This is not the time to stop talking about gun control. It is precisely the time to talk about it as never before. To shout…to scream about it. At least loudly enough so that it might be heard by our legislators above the next volley of bullets and parents weeping over innocently slaughtered children.
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The film “Lincoln” is a very powerful movie. I recommend it highly.
Certainly you see the carnage of that horrible war, and you understand that what was at stake was abolition of slavery and the survival of the nation.
But the movie was less violent than the make-believe movies that were previewed, that were full of gunfire, pyrotechnics, and explosions, all gratuitous.
I think you missed the point I was making.
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How about we all agree on what is right and wrong, and then teach children what is right and wrong. The other common thread in all these shootings is public education. Perhaps the lack of morality in education is the issue….God forbid (oh, can I say God?) we tell someone that what they are doing is downright, unequivocally wrong! And then imagine if they begin to develop a “conscious” and actually have children begin to self-monitor. Liberals have decided to experiment with morality, and this is where we are!
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Really? This is “education’s fault?” This is the “liberal’s” fault? This is the fault of all of us allowing society to lose its moral compass starting with the family structure. It is about our widening class system and people not caring about one another. This is not about what education does not do nor is it a liberal problem; it is a societal problem linked to lobbyists (NRA) and politics (big money & power!)
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My family hasn’t lost its moral compass, but we are in battle against society and public policies which create so many more problems than they fix. We can’t even define “family structure” any more because we would insult those who choose to live a life where they assume others will take care of them. Government policies are to blame, and they roll those policies out in educational institutions. Don’t get me wrong – the teachers are the ones keeping it together despite the government policies. There are many policies that have created this failing model they call society which has absolved itself from any inkling of morality, and then wonders why someone kills. How can you blame the gun and not the killer?
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When do we ban guns…is when the military culture of power is not associated with guns anymore…when it’s not “heroic” to shoot someone else no matter what for.
As far as liberals are concerned, I think we would agree that the NRA is not liberal and that voices against gun control are not liberal. I agree that schools should be teaching wrong from right, but do not feel that moral education is the primary responsibility of public schools.
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We can’t even agree on what is right or wrong. So in that case, it would be fair to allow everyone to have guns, not just the bad guys.
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6ofus+2,
You can say “god” whenever you want. I will take that as an argument without basis and go from there. No, no “god” ever said anything about morals, however, man has and will continue to do so.
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Unfortunately, nothing is going to change within our society due to this terrible tragedy. The people of power control our society and have no need to change the class system that benefits them in all ways. It is not just about gun control, it is really about the maintenance of the societal status quo. The rich & powerful will maintain that which benefits them the most. It remains all about money & power. God Bless the students & teachers and all of the members of the Newtown community.
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I really am amazed how inadequate our support systems are, especially for our “troubled” students. The guidance counselor would “fit my students” into their schedule. Sometimes that was just a few times a month. And these are children who needed professional help. We can spend money on tests, but people like Bloomberg are threatening to fire guidance counselors when most schools need more than one. Currently many GC and psychologists are working on split sessions in more than one school. That is just so wrong.
I see what my own niece is going through with her son, and despite all her pleas, all he ever got was out-patient services. It wasn’t until he was 17 that he was hospitalized, but it was too late. They let him out after a few months and nothing changed. It was also my niece who fought the high school administrators and district to get teachers trained on his condition. They were finally trained, and many teachers told her it helped. Now he is 18 and considered an adult. And my niece has very little recourse. He now has more rights due to his age than his condition. He feels hopeless and considers himself a loser. It’s really sad. And I pray he never, ever feels so hopeless or angry that he will take his frustration out on others.
btw, not all states have laws where people have to be vetted before they can buy a gun. In many states you can pick up a gun at the same place you just bought household appliances and toys.
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Maybe we should ignore Hollywood’s portrayal of guns, and get real. Maybe if kids learned respect and safety towards guns early on, the fascination would go away. I wonder if there were mass shootings in the 1800’s? Did people go on anti-school or “mall” rampages in the wild west? Maybe, just maybe, there is a reason that people have dropped all semblance of morality and now we have a lot of bad, sociopath-type events. People have lost their connection with others – it is connecting with other human beings on an emotional and empathetic level that makes the difference. For some reason, certain groups have decided to completely focus on breaking down anything positive in society for fear of judging someone. They have blood on their hands.
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Mexico has a ban on all guns. In 2010, there were over 15,000 gun deaths http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/12/mexico-drug-war-deaths-2010_n_808277.html
I would still be fat if they banned forks. When they ban guns, only crooks will have guns. I don’t hunt, nor do I say people should not hunt. The world is a wild place with this economy and I fear for riots. Besides, a gun is easier to carry than a cop. Yes, I will call a cop first, but if there is a real threat to my life, beware. I have a new gun that still has never been fired. But it loaded and locked in my gun safe. I take it out once in a while to check for rust.
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Yes – the crooks would have guns – but the crooks would be crooks and do what crooks do. So it goes. But do we need to allow the crazed, the psychopaths, the unstable and irrational to get guns LEGALLY?
Get over it. So you own a shiny new gun. I hope you never have to use it and odds are you won’t. So is that the price we pay for 27 innocent lives in CT. And thousands more?
And, I assure you if the young Black males who die of gunfire every year were young white suburban males this country would have a very different attitude about this.
The world is a wild place – BUT A KINDERGARTEN CLASSROOM IS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE A FREAKING WILD PLACE!
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No we don’t need to let psycopaths, etc. get guns legally, but they can’t now, by the 1968 gun control act. Perhaps we need to include among those not permitted to own guns those on psychoactive medications, e.g. Prozac.
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Guns aside, have any other teachers thought, what you you do if this happened in your classroom? I can’t be the only one that has thought about that, given recent events in America. What would I do? Would I have the compassion and courage and composure that these teachers displayed? Would I be able to tell my kids that I love them and that they were like my children to me? Would I be able to keep them quiet yet keep their minds off the horrible things going on in the building? Each and every one of us may have to face that situation some time in the future. I trust that my HP would be there with me and my kids.
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“have any other teachers thought, what you you do if this happened in your classroom?”
There was a shooting at a primary school in my area, when I was teaching primary age kids, and it shook me up so much that I felt I needed to plan out what I would do if something like that ever happened at my school.
I carefully examined all of my options, such as our school’s security, alarm and communications systems, places we could use to exit, such as different doors and windows, places we could hide, such as under and behind furniture, bathrooms, etc. Then I regularly conducted what I called “safety drills” with just my class.
Since the shooting had been reported in the news extensively, my students had been aware of it and expressed concern, so I was honest with them about why we were having the new “safety drills.” Knowing that I was preparing to protect the children and get them to safety, if something like that ever happened to us, was reassuring to them. I would recommend that other teachers do something similar.
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Why not ban violence in Hollywood movies?
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harlanfalstaff – Since you seem to have an answer, no, an excuse for everything – are 20 five-year olds just the price of doing business? A little collateral damage. I imagine the response to this will be “guns don’t kill people – people kill people.”
Maybe you can sleep at night – but walk in the shoes of those of us who actually have to protect and care of thousands of children every day and have seen the effects of gun violence in schools – walk in the shoes of the first responders who walked into that classroom today – walk in the shoes of the secretary sitting at the desk with no more than a buzzer system to protect her and an entire school from a terrorist – walk in the shoes of every teacher walking into a classroom Monday morning – and then spout off your cynical comment about “ban movie violence” or “psychopaths can’t get guns” and see how you feel.
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Diane, @DHochsprung was a reader of your column. She was a thoughtful educator. #prayforNewtown
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Jere Hochman. I am not being cynical. What is your proposed remedy? I have four. 1) Anyone on SSRI’s should also not be able to purchase a gun. (Of course, these were his mother’s guns, not his, and she’s a school teacher just like you. What do you think is going on there?) 2) Each school should have an armed guard out front, and otherwise be locked down. 3) Households should be limited to one gun for self defense. 4) I’d like to see free speech modified so as to ban gun violence depictions in movies and games. Are you willing to go that far? Or do you want to go further, to ban guns totally, as in Mexico? Let not your liberal animus prevent you from working with conservatives to achieve some better control of this kind of thing. I DO think the crucial factor is not the gun itself, but the crazy mind of this young man. Please listen to subsequent news reports to determine whether he was on some kind of pill of the SSRI type, which work unpredictably in young people. Yet, possibly it is time to restrict sale of automatic pistols too.
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Schools are buckling under, often contradictory, legislation created in response to challenges and tragedies. The problem is not that there aren’t enough metal detectors or mandatory lockdown drills. The problem also isn’t video games or films. The problem is that the mentally ill have easier access to handguns than to psych services.
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That people should have ready access to mental health services is a point well taken.
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My husband, who is much more into twitter than myself (I’m not very good with character limitations as you can tell from my lengthy rambling blog posts), found the twitter stream of the Principal in Newtown. Apparently she was not a huge fan of Arne Duncan’s policies as well. It takes a lot for an administrator to publicly speak out against the Secretary of Education. It takes a lot of love for her students and knowing what is right for her students and what her students really need to put her job on the line. She knew what her students needed was a safe and caring place where they could feel loved and develop emotionally as empathetic human beings. With our narrow focus on test results and the Common Core narrowing of the curriculum to facts, ma’am, just the facts “nobody cares what you think” informational texts, we will lose our humanity even more. Please, teachers, now is the time to speak up about what is really needed in our schools. Who cares what your administrators or district officials will think of you? We could all be gone tomorrow. YOLO!!! In case you don’t know what YOLO means, you can read my blog post about it and the image for my gravatar here http://kafkateach.wordpress.com/2012/12/15/yolo.
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I could not agree more. We need teachers to understand now that the union does not speak for them. They need to be unafraid to speak up about how inappropriate education has become for children – testing non-stop, curriculum maps that keep moving along, common core that aims to create little machines who crank through the material, programs not in alignment with the child’s readiness, book publishers who will get rich off of this plan, school take-over companies standing by when the school’s fail – the power of the teacher to connect with his or her students is being taken away. So sad for so many reasons but especially because not one single child on this planet probably has warm, fuzzy feelings for any test they took, but almost all can remember that teacher who took the time for them when no one else would.
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Petition the White House to address gun control:
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/immediately-address-issue-gun-control-through-introduction-legislation-congress/2tgcXzQC
Diane, please post this link for your readers so they can take action.
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I will start to arrrive at the movies at least 30 minutes late in order to avoid ALL of the previews of the new movies. The violence and such little regard for taking a life makes me lose my interest for the movie I really wanted to see!!!
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As a teacher, I am so horrified by what happened! How can I protect my kids?
“I Cried for Connecticut” http://goo.gl/usZ59
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Overseas weapons sales by the United States totaled $66.3 billion last year, or more than three-quarters of the global arms market, valued at $85.3 billion. -NYTimes- 8/26/2012
“Everybody’s worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there’s a really easy way: stop participating in it.”
Noam Chomsky
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Anders Breivik did a massacre too. What was the problem in Norway? Too many guns?
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These incidents prove that life does not have value and meaning and violence is the answer. The answer to the Why question will take more than gun control laws to resolve the issue.
I have hope though that, learning from these tragedies, if we change our beliefs and values for our own children, our neighbors’ children, and our country’s children, we will have healthier, mentally stable citizens. We live in an advanced society where we are living as individuals rather than as a community, where as decades ago this was not so. These mass murder suicides are a sign of a SICK community–let’s quit the denial.
Do we really care what our children are doing with themselves and others? Do we really care what they are thinking as their environment bombards them with many negative stimuli? Where are the adults who should be nuturing their kids, their neighbor’s kids instead of isolating them?
These kids/adults with mental illnesses do exhibit signs, but we’ve ignored it. The people of our country need to learn to acknowledge that it is a real problem. Does it take the government to supplement more social services? Maybe. But the real solution starts with how we deal with it before it becomes an issue. Social services should be the last resort. It doesn’t take a bunch of money to change our beliefs and values to nurture our family’s well being and our neighbor’s. It should come as natural to respond to these issues as you might tend to a child’s temperature which could lead to a fever and a severe illness if not properly addressed.
Bullying is a huge issue in and out of schools which exacerbates issues of mental illness in youth, but schools are not the only answers. We need the support of the community urban and rural alike. School officials cannot go home to check up on these individuals to make sure they’re doing the right thing. We need to stop blaming teachers and parents. It is a community’s problem and responsibility.
As for gun control, we need that to be inplace. I believe that people own guns to help them feel in control over others like what money does for people who have it. Our freedom to have things like guns and money have severe consequences as an example of Sandy Hook. This gunman came from a wealthy background whose parent had lots of guns. Why does one need to have a gun, let alone many of them?
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And what about parents who bully their children?
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Diane, Thank you for commenting on Hollywood violence. The discussions about gun violence never takes on Hollywood. How could the nitense display of solving problems with guns go so unnoticed? Is it because all the beautiful people are holding the guns, is it because Hollywood money and politics are related? Anyone who holds a gun and demonstrates violence, Anyone, even cartoon characters are endorsing the use of guns!
Any Hollywood just pats itself on the back, hugs all around and whats for dinner.
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I don’t think that Hollywood can be blamed for the school shootings in the US. We watch those same movies here in Sweden and to this point we haven’t had a school shooting.
What we don’t allow is for anyone that wants to, to have a gun. We have restrictions and rules. We don’t say that everyone has the right to a gun to protect themselves because you don’t need a gun to protect yourself if no one else have a gun.
I don’t think that violent computer games can be blamed for school shootings in the US either, because we have the same violent computer games here in Sweden and to this point we haven’t had a school shooting.
We need to teach our children to communicate, to put in words what is wrong in their world so that we can make it right. If we don’t teach our children that, they will grow up, angry, because they can’t explain what is wrong and we can’t help them to put it right.
We need to work on seeing every single person, because people that are seen don’t shoot, it’s the people that are not seen that do.
I think that smiling to people, asking how they are doing, asking if you can help with anything, just making sure that they are seen and that they know that they are seen, will help a long way!
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Guns can be symbols of power, yet it is also the symbol of lack of power because it only shows you are capable of taking other ppl’s lives. If power came from killing everyone than the essence of power is pointless because once you kill of people there is no power left. So technically power does not come from guns and not from media. It comes from the people around us that believe that guns and media are what influence and dictate the world around us. Guns do not equal violence, rather it is the fact that we associate guns with killing and murder that is violent. It is like saying that forks are evil and they are murder weapons, this can be true, you can stab someone in the eye and then use it to jab at their jugular vein, yet at the same time we use them to eat. So it is not that guns = power or violence, it is that we use them for the wrong purposes which cause them to be associated with power and violence.
People that kill and murder are not always crazy, the fact is that they are probably well and conscious of what they are doing. The most powerful and “indecent” murders are probably genius, just think of how long they had to plan in order to strike, and on top of all that, they had to keep it a secret while working on it. They might not even think it’s glamourous. I don’t think it is fair just to say that “…so many people turn to guns to express their inner turmoil” because many don’t. On the other hand, Hollywood does not glamorize violence, it shows it to people, we are the ones that perceive and express the feelings and because we think it’s is great, that is why they produce more of these kinds of movies.
Media and Hollywood are not responsible for the “cult and violence” it is our society that should be. It is ignorant to say that it’s all media’s fault as I have explained above.
Just some of my thoughts.
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My guns are a work of art. Some have been passed down from generation to generation and now I am the proud keeper of these fine works of art. Works of art that I will pass down to my grand children. Most high quality handguns are largely manufactured by hand and have a look and feel that is very satisfying to hold. Picking up a quality handgun is the same to me as looking at a piece of art hung on the wall. It gives me great pleasure to admire the work of others. I think of what the person might have been thinking as they toiled over this masterpiece of engineering. I wonder what me may have in common. I wonder if he wonders who will be the owner of his great work and will they appreciate the effort he is putting into this fine piece of machinery. I bet he never once wondered if this handgun was going to kill someone, because he knows that handguns don’t kill, people kill! People have evil thoughts. It is people that puts the rounds in the chamber, and it is people that pull the trigger.
Blaming me for other people’s bad deeds is not logical!
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I bet they are not assault weapons.
A relative has a collections of guns with hand-carved grips. Every one of them is a single shot gun.
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Are you declaring here, Diane, that you are getting behind the President’s as yet undisclosed assault gun ban legislation? That’s certainly a reasonable position to take. Is the use of rapid fire, multi cartridge clips what you see as the common factor in Newtown, Aurora, Oregon, Columbine, and thus the crucial element which if eliminated would prevent future mass killings? Or are you “just sayin’ “?
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As a mother, grandmother, human being, and American, I would be thrilled to see all guns eliminated except for law officers and military personnel. The only exception I would make (reluctantly) would be single-shot rifles for hunters only. Two members of my family died by gunfire, and my father’s life was cut short by a gun accident. The only protection against assault weapons and semi-automatic guns is to keep them out of the wrong hands.
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Thanks for giving your real name.
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