20+ murdered in US school shooting. Many primary school children among the dead.

[Armaghgeddon]

Shame on Obama.

WTF?

Shame on every President since day 1, shame on every senator from day one and shame on every govcenor from day one that lifted not one finger to change the gun culture in the USA.

Obama is partly to blame but no more so than any other president, that is most unfair.

Nothing good can come out of this other than maybe now, the cowards that are the politicians will be forced to act and say fcuk the NRA and get the laws changed  and get semi automatc and automatic weapons out of the hands of the people, they don't f**king need them!

Shame on Americans for voting for him.

WTF? Do you think Romney would have done more?? have a cop on.

I was defending Obama, if people are going to blame him then you can also blame the people who voted for him.

like feck you were!

Name one politician that has stood up to the NRA and made a difference on gun legislation in the USA???   Ya cant! ergo you cannot blame Obama just because he is the sitting president, most unfair.

Obama is in a unique situation, unlike all before him he can become a part of the solution and not part of the problem, he has four years to make history on a very emotive and important issue, that of gun control, oh and he can weaken one of the worlds greatest associations while he is at it, how great would that be?

Look back at one of my previous posts...

Gun culture is huge in america and Obama does want to have tighter checks and restrictions on who can own a gun.

[sammymaguire]

What forces anyone to point a loaded gun at a child and pull the trigger? Then to watch the aftermath. Sick

[dec]

Gun ownership is protected by the second amendment of the constitution. To change the constitution requires a two thirds vote in both the House and the Senate and then be ratified by three quarters of the states.

The president plays no part and the chances of getting 38 out of the 50 states to get rid of the second amendment is non existent.

[Armaghgeddon]

Have heard the Girlfriend and her friend can be added to the list of people murdered.

[Captain Obvious]

Dunblane school massacre was also five,six year olds. More deaths in this school shooting. RIP to all Kids and my heart goes out to the parents.

[tyssam5]

Gun ownership is protected by the second amendment of the constitution. To change the constitution requires a two thirds vote in both the House and the Senate and then be ratified by three quarters of the states.

The president plays no part and the chances of getting 38 out of the 50 states to get rid of the second amendment is non existent.

That might be so but the Supreme Court determines which laws are in breach of the constitution.  Banning assault weapons, large magazines, have background check for buyers and forcing owners to lock up their gun properly all fall a long way short of an outright ban but might do some use.

[stew]

@Stew

Obviously not direct responsibility but the weaponry the shooter had access to is a direct result of groups like the NRA.

I agree however that does not make them as bad as the shooter, nobody is as bad as the shooter!

The lobbyists are cnuts, as are the senators etc, how anyone can support the NRA  100% is beyond me.

[45]

I'd have to say this is most sickening  thing I have seen happen in the states in many years. With 3 young kids of my own this would be the worst nightmare I could ever have to  come to terms with. I also hope when Obama says when they have to come together to take more action after this no mater the politics he means it , even if it means some type of small steps of putting sanctions in place there at at least has to be some type of vetting put in place on who can be responsible for a gun over there .  Realistically they are never going to ban them , but I hope those NRA b*****ds are at least wiping away a tear from there eye tonight  but I doubt it

[Eamonnca1]

If there isn't a backlash against the NRA now there never will be.  This will either be a 9/11 moment or it'll just be "another school massacre" and the American public will be de-sensitized to another low level of depravity.  I've already seen another forum where people have been arguing, in all seriousness, that armed kindergarten teachers would have prevented this.  I mean, how do you reason with people like that? Boggles the mind.

[tyssam5]

If there isn't a backlash against the NRA now there never will be.  This will either be a 9/11 moment or it'll just be "another school massacre" and the American public will be de-sensitized to another low level of depravity.  I've already seen another forum where people have been arguing, in all seriousness, that armed kindergarten teachers would have prevented this.  I mean, how do you reason with people like that? Boggles the mind.

There was a mall shooting Oregon the other night and the same crowd were arguing that the guy had targeted the mall because he knew carrying concealed weapons there was illegal, so no one would shoot back it him. They live in a Rambo fantasy.

[Puckoon]

I just contacted a close friend who works ATF in Boston. This guy is a Waco veteran and hard as nails. I didn't think he'd be involved but he said he's been "on it all day, seen a lot of stuff in my career but this is unspeakable".

Just brutal. And still my facebook is awash with those who are concerned about their constitutional rights. I'll never get it.

[seafoid]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/14/newtown-school-shootings-gun-control

Newtown shootings: if not now, when is the time to talk about gun control?

With 27, including 18 children, shot dead in Connecticut, it's not 'politics' but basic decency to insist America have this debate
Share650


Gary Younge

guardian.co.uk, Friday 14 December 2012 19.04 GMT


Friday's mass shooting at Sandy Hook school in Newtown, Connecticut is shocking and horrifying – the time and the place of these massacres inevitably catch us unawares. But the fact that another mass shooting has occurred is not shocking, any more than the last one was, or the next one will be.

Just as with the mass killings earlier this year at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin and the Aurora movie theater, near Denver, Colorado, the chorus of empathetic responses that will follow these tragic shootings in Newtown, Connecticut marks a stubborn refrain in a perennial American elegy. Different singers mouthing different words, but basically singing the same song.

Psychological profiles of the shooter emerge, along with portraits of the victims, while the political class closes ranks so that the nation can heal. Incanted tones to sooth a permanent scar.

All rituals serve a purpose. And this one is no different.

This Friday, at time of writing, 27 people are reported dead, including 18 children. Their families must be given space to mourn, and that space should be respected.

But it does not honour the dead to insist that there must be no room in that space for rational thought and critical appraisal. Indeed, such situations demand both. For one can only account for so many "isolated" incidents before it becomes necessary to start dealing with a pattern.

It is simply not plausible to understand events in Connecticut this Friday without having a conversation about guns in a country where more than 84 people a day are killed with guns, and more than twice that number are injured with them.

Amid all the column inches and airtime now being devoted to these horrific slayings, though, that elephant in the room will remain affectionately patted, discreetly fed and politely indulged. To claim that "this is not the time" ignores the reality that America has found itself incapable of finding any appropriate time to have this urgent conversation. The victims in Newtown, Connecticut deserve at least that. And these tragedies take place everyday, albeit on a smaller scale.

America's president, Barack Obama, understands this. The number of homicide victims in his home town of Chicago this year has outnumbered the fatalities among US troops serving in Kabul.

In response to the Aurora shootings in July, President Obama was right to suspend the routine campaign rhetoric and play the statesman. Nobody wanted to hear about Mitt Romney's tax records and stimulating the economy on that day. There were other days for electioneering, true, but he was wrong to insist on this:


"There are going to be other days for politics. This is a day for prayer and reflection."

Yet that "other day" for debating gun laws never came – not at any point in the three months that remained before the election. Even now, right on cue, the president's spokesman, Jay Carney, has intoned the familiar strain that "now is not the time" to talk about gun control.

For what are we to reflect on if not how this, and so many other similar calamities, came about. Those who insist that we should not "play politics" with the victim's grief conveniently ignore that politics is what caused that grief. Not party politics. But a blend of opportunism on the right that flagrantly mischaracterises the issue, and spinelessness on the left that refuses to address it.

Americans are no more prone to mental illness or violence than any other people in the world. What they do have is more guns: roughly, 90 for every 100 people. And regions and states with higher rates of gun ownership have significantly higher rates of homicide than states with lower rates of gun ownership.

The trite insistence that "guns don't kill people, people kill people" simply avoids the reality that people can kill people much more easily with guns than anything else that's accessible. Americans understand this. That's why a plurality supports greater gun control, and a majority thinks the sale of firearms should be more tightly regulated.

The trouble is that people feel powerless to do anything about it. The gun lobby has proved sufficiently potent in rallying opposition to virtually all gun control measures that Democrats have all but given up on arguing for it. In the meantime, the country is literally and metaphorically dying for it.

Gun control is possible. There are both a constituency for it and an argument for it. But it can't happen without a political coalition prepared to fight for it.

If America can twice elect a black president, it can do this.

[stew]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/14/newtown-school-shootings-gun-control

Newtown shootings: if not now, when is the time to talk about gun control?

With 27, including 18 children, shot dead in Connecticut, it's not 'politics' but basic decency to insist America have this debate
Share650


Gary Younge

guardian.co.uk, Friday 14 December 2012 19.04 GMT


Friday's mass shooting at Sandy Hook school in Newtown, Connecticut is shocking and horrifying – the time and the place of these massacres inevitably catch us unawares. But the fact that another mass shooting has occurred is not shocking, any more than the last one was, or the next one will be.

Just as with the mass killings earlier this year at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin and the Aurora movie theater, near Denver, Colorado, the chorus of empathetic responses that will follow these tragic shootings in Newtown, Connecticut marks a stubborn refrain in a perennial American elegy. Different singers mouthing different words, but basically singing the same song.

Psychological profiles of the shooter emerge, along with portraits of the victims, while the political class closes ranks so that the nation can heal. Incanted tones to sooth a permanent scar.

All rituals serve a purpose. And this one is no different.

This Friday, at time of writing, 27 people are reported dead, including 18 children. Their families must be given space to mourn, and that space should be respected.

But it does not honour the dead to insist that there must be no room in that space for rational thought and critical appraisal. Indeed, such situations demand both. For one can only account for so many "isolated" incidents before it becomes necessary to start dealing with a pattern.

It is simply not plausible to understand events in Connecticut this Friday without having a conversation about guns in a country where more than 84 people a day are killed with guns, and more than twice that number are injured with them.

Amid all the column inches and airtime now being devoted to these horrific slayings, though, that elephant in the room will remain affectionately patted, discreetly fed and politely indulged. To claim that "this is not the time" ignores the reality that America has found itself incapable of finding any appropriate time to have this urgent conversation. The victims in Newtown, Connecticut deserve at least that. And these tragedies take place everyday, albeit on a smaller scale.

America's president, Barack Obama, understands this. The number of homicide victims in his home town of Chicago this year has outnumbered the fatalities among US troops serving in Kabul.

In response to the Aurora shootings in July, President Obama was right to suspend the routine campaign rhetoric and play the statesman. Nobody wanted to hear about Mitt Romney's tax records and stimulating the economy on that day. There were other days for electioneering, true, but he was wrong to insist on this:


"There are going to be other days for politics. This is a day for prayer and reflection."

Yet that "other day" for debating gun laws never came – not at any point in the three months that remained before the election. Even now, right on cue, the president's spokesman, Jay Carney, has intoned the familiar strain that "now is not the time" to talk about gun control.

For what are we to reflect on if not how this, and so many other similar calamities, came about. Those who insist that we should not "play politics" with the victim's grief conveniently ignore that politics is what caused that grief. Not party politics. But a blend of opportunism on the right that flagrantly mischaracterises the issue, and spinelessness on the left that refuses to address it.

Americans are no more prone to mental illness or violence than any other people in the world. What they do have is more guns: roughly, 90 for every 100 people. And regions and states with higher rates of gun ownership have significantly higher rates of homicide than states with lower rates of gun ownership.

The trite insistence that "guns don't kill people, people kill people" simply avoids the reality that people can kill people much more easily with guns than anything else that's accessible. Americans understand this. That's why a plurality supports greater gun control, and a majority thinks the sale of firearms should be more tightly regulated.

The trouble is that people feel powerless to do anything about it. The gun lobby has proved sufficiently potent in rallying opposition to virtually all gun control measures that Democrats have all but given up on arguing for it. In the meantime, the country is literally and metaphorically dying for it.

Gun control is possible. There are both a constituency for it and an argument for it. But it can't happen without a political coalition prepared to fight for it.

If America can twice elect a black president, it can do this.

He had me right up until th last line..................what the fcuk

[omagh_gael]

Seemingly a lot of the earlier reports untrue e.g. His mother wasn't a teacher at the school. This makes establishing a motive even more difficult.

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/12/14/us/connecticut-school-shooting/index.html?c=intl-homepage-t&page=5

[J70]

I just contacted a close friend who works ATF in Boston. This guy is a Waco veteran and hard as nails. I didn't think he'd be involved but he said he's been "on it all day, seen a lot of stuff in my career but this is unspeakable".

Just brutal. And still my facebook is awash with those who are concerned about their constitutional rights. I'll never get it.

Their constitutional right to own a fuckin' AK47, whatever possible use they could have for that (oh, I forgot, the feds or the UN might be coming for them!) These people are twisted!