If more guns make us safer why did the NRA ban guns from its press conference? They are nothing more than chickenshit shills for weapons dealers, spewing bile and paranoia.

You have to give them credit. They were smart enough to buy a judge who would base his ruling on the definitions contained in this book.

(link...)

Isn't it odd, that the treatise that changed two hundred years of constitutional law is so obscure, that the reprint isn't even guaranteed to be free from flaws?

100,000 schools
~ 3 resource officers at each one (just to give you 2.5 given time off, sick leave, etc)
x $50,000 for salary, training, equipment

= $15 BILLION per year

Now, I would suggest we embrace the NRA's proposal, contingent on a new tax on gun sales to pay for it. Based on roughly 15 million new gun sales per year, that would be a $1000 tax on each gun sale.

My suggestion would be to pro-rate that by gun type, so maybe only $500 for a home-defense or true sport weapon (non-military shotgun, bolt-action rifle), $800 for a handgun, and $10,000 for AR-15s and the like.

Let's embrace the NRA's suggestion in this manner. And maybe, using Chris Rock's logic, a 50-cent-per-round ammunition tax.

Not to make light of this situation but in Joseph Heller's "Catch-22" the catch was this.

Insane pilots were not allowed to fly combat missions. The definition of insanity was anyone crazy enough to fly a combat mission, BUT, the only was to act upon this clause was for the pilot to ask that it be invoked, however, once the pilot asked to be declared insane he showed reasonable concern for his well being and thereby proved his sanity.

In Heller vs. D.C. (or vica versa) the catch is that the local governments are in charge of regulating their own militias to provide order and safety but they're not allowed to regulate their own gun owners because gun ownership is now an individual right not tied to being in a militia.

Every time we let this Heller guy come up with something it turns out to be bizarre.

Personally, I support the placement of armed School Resource Officers in schools. As the NYT reports, about 1/3 of all schools nationally (and locally, I believe) already have SROs on staff, virtually all of whom enjoy strong, positive relationships with the students who are their charges. What I don't support is armed volunteers, to include teachers and/or administrators.

But yeah, it's offensive that the NRA promoted armed SROs, decried inadequate treatment for mental illness, and dissed violence in media, but wouldn't give an inch on the "need" for assault weapons in the hands of the general citizenry.

Sure seems to me that there are lots of preventive changes we could make, and we should enact every last one of them.

What do they want?
"This is the beginning of a serious conversation. We won't be taking questions today.”

I think the implied "shut the hell up" is pretty clear, but I don't plan on it.

What do they want? Absolute power.

I think the discussion should go past armed School Resource Officers.

Completely agree that SROs (but not armed volunteers, teachers, or administrators) are just part of the fix needed.

I've been arguing with folks at the KNS site for a week that their insistence that the assault weapons ban didn't "lower the crime rate" really misses the point.

The fact remains that assault weapons have been the weapons of choice in virtually every mass shooting, it's mass shootings that are the topic of conversation recently, and their side simply hasn't offered any rationale for why the general citizenry "needs" these particular weapons.

To the folks who insist that reinstating the ban would constitute an abridgement of their Second Amendment rights, I've reminded 'em that they're denied grenades, bombs, and "yellowcake" uranium, too, and that our rights outlined in the Constitution are never absolute.

I even met up with a former Marine yesterday who posited that there really aren't that many people who die in mass shootings, anyway, and that as many die in swimming pool accidents! Wow!

We should do everything that we can do to alleviate this problem and it's perfectly obvious to me that that includes curtailing availability of the weapons most often used in mass shootings.

BTW, the kid pictured in yesterday's KNS article entitled Knox gun sales see surge, who's getting some help installing the Knight's Armament rail system on his Bushmaster XM-15 assault rifle, is a junior at Powell High School.

Unless he were held back a grade in years past (which I don't recall), he's the same age as my son, namely 16 or 17.

Current law says it's none of my beeswax, but I don't understand why a parent would buy his or her minor child an assault rifle, whether or not the child enjoys "target shooting."

...were not necessarily wins for the libertarian Mad Maxes, page 193.

Eric, I'm not understanding where you're directing us in this last link?

It looks like the linked document is 55 pages long, so where is this "page 193?"

(Interesting background info. Thanks.)

Oops. Coulda opened the doc, I guess...

Thanks.