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alum93 wrote:

I don't know if this will get moved or not, but there was a terrible tragedy in our country today with multiple shootings at a grade school in Connecticut. 

I know we get caught up in discussing/arguing/playing when we talk about sports.  Today my heart and prayers go out to all the families and those who lost their lives in the senseless tragedy, and i ask those who are reading this to pray as well.  My heart aches for those kids. So sad and so unnecessary.

I am sick to my stomach. How could someone just walk into a class of 5 year olds and start shooting???

Pray for along time for these parents, cause their pain will last a lifetime.

For the life of me, I just can't understand why...my thoughts and prayers to those families affected by such a senseless act.

Sick people in this world. Thoughts and prayers for all affected.

Here come the politics, take it to another room.

Let's just be perfectly clear.. sick people with guns.

I don't want to be controversial by adding politicsbut its not just sick people with guns, its sick people with box cutters(911), sick people with vans packed with explosives (Oklahoma City Bombing). I truly don't know how to fix the world so nothing like this happens again. Maybe more training to react quicker.

More often than not it is sick people with guns.  You are kidding yourself if you think that having less guns does not mean less violence.  Having a gun makes it too easy to kill another person.

Mexico/Juarez has very strict gun control laws; see it's working for them.  Here's a little bit of information on gun control not having the intended results some think it will:

http://www.captainsjournal.com...sies-and-brits/

The problem is that these mass shooters conspire and plan for their rampage. These are not crimes of passion or crimes by identified criminals, but rather crimes from people with evil minds. I'm a hardcore conservative and am at the point that I believe that access to some guns has to be controlled. However, I do not believe that it would stop this type of an individual.

I think that something that should be looked at is the role of video games and these fantasy lives that these young boys get into. Sitting in your bedroom shooting people for hours at a time every day can not be good for the mind. Whatever happened to shooting baskets all afternoon or throwing rocks at bottles? King of the hill and wrestling with your friends?

My prayers and thoughts with the people in Connecticut. May they find comfort through God. This makes the our conference issues seem so trivial. I pray that our great country finds a way to stop this.

The guns in Mexico come from the US, enacting stricter gun laws here would help them and us.  That link is a pretty ridiculous, there are way too many variables to directly correlate gun laws and violent crimes and there is no mention of the fact that violent crime does not necessarily mean gun violence.   

Northern Aggie- I agree that stricter gun laws would not make guns disappear but greatly reducing their numbers would make it more difficult for even a calculated individual to obtain one.  You also have to consider all of the spur of the moment or heat of passion killings that are much more common and could be reduced.

Stricter gun laws would make it impossible for me to protect my family against the criminals. Gun laws are intended to keep the honest people honest. Criminals will have a gun no matter what.

You are saying that you wouldn't pass a background check or that you wouldn't be able to go through a waiting period to own a gun?  Do you need more than one gun to protect your family?  If there are stricter gun protection laws than yes some criminals will still have them but at the very least less will own them.  It would also lower the amount of deaths from gun violence a among families and friends.

Modifying current rules are good but to ban my constitution right no. Most of these guns were not registered to the criminal. If someone wants to kill they will regardless is its a gun, bat, knife or hands. I also enjoy hunting so yes I do need more then one firearm. I also served my country for 13 years so I sure dam better be able to keep my constitution rights!!!

Maybe but it is more difficult to kill with other methods.

911 and Oklahoma City was pretty eazy.

Those two plans took a lot more to plan and carry out then these rash of mass shootings that we have been seeing.  Limiting gun rights won't eliminate the threat of these awful incidents but can help.  Disarming nuclear weapons doesn't eliminate the possibility of war but it reduces the damage that can be done.

This was a terrible tragedy.

Small children going off to kindergarten should be safe and sound and drink milk, eat cookies, and have recess.

Mentally unstable people will always be a threat in a free country to do damage. We may be able to reduce the threat over time, but there is no way to eliminate the threat entirely.

Gun control, mental health issues, school safety, death penalty, and most political hot button issues are very complex and there are no real soundbite answers to such complex issues.

The world has changed, the United States has changed, and people have basically changed. You can't put the toothpaste back in the tube. Changes are here to stay, and will continue. They do not show the Wonderful World of Disney or Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom on Sunday nights anymore for the whole family to watch.

We don't play King of the Hill, Red Rover, or shoot baskets all day as Northern stated. Instead we Tweet, Instagram, Facebook, and play Black Ops 99 rated M for Mature. I say it should be rated D for Down the Drain or Dumb. Violent video games do play a part, as someone pointed out. But, so do 9,999 other things.

There are no easy answers and the bad thing is that this will happen again no matter what laws are passed or security systems are installed.

We must take a moment to pray for / have in our thoughts / think of the innocent victims in the case and do what we can to help things improve. We did not get broke overnight and we won't get fixed overnight.

This one really hurts more because of the little children 5 years old. Anyone who knows 5 to 7 year olds will feel extra pain here.

My heart aches much more on this one.

JT