When my father attended a rural high school in the early '50s, students would bring their hunting rifles to school and store them in their lockers, so they could.. go hunting.. after class.

And that's why it would have made no difference if he'd tried to strangle the people in the church with his bare hands, instead of having a shotgun. Or an Abrams tank. Everyone should have an Abrams tank, for target practice, sport, and to ensure a well-regulated militia.

Things are value-free. People are free to use and misuse things. Some of the misuse comes from ignorance, some from selfish interest, and some from abnormality. It is impossible to impose values on things without outlawing or marginalizing good use or at least use that causes no harm.

The emphasis should be on education. As a youngster, I was a belonged to a local gun club and participated in the NRA training program. I learned to use firearms responsibly from the get-go. (This is not an advertisement for the NRA. I let my membership lapse early on for no other reason than moving on, and I regard most of what I hear about them now as over the top.)

It's also important to create conditions suitable for responsible use beyond education. Some laws are clearly necessary. Not everyone should be able to go into a hardware store and purchase explosives. It is necessary to passing licensing exams for items that can harm others through misuse, e.g., automobiles and trucks. Similarly, just as not anyone is allow to operate an eighteen wheeler on public roads; so too, dangerous weapons should be licensed. People who cannot control their self-interest, e.g., certain felons, are already excluded from weapons possession. Moreover, mentally unstable people should also be disqualified. Doing this doesn’t require rocket science, just better education and enforcement. Not that no new laws need to be passed. Too many unstable people are loosing it and causing mayhem.

However, this is a small fraction of the harm resulting from gun violence, sort of like the number of people purposely run down by vehicles relative to accidents. Just as most people die in vehicle accident than vehicle homicide; so too, most people killed or injured by weapons are victims of either domestic violence or accident. Most accidents are preventable and a great deal of domestic abuse could be also, before it turns into deadly violence.

Rather than outlawing things, greater emphasis needs to be placed on educating people in responsible use, enforcing responsible use, and identifying people who cannot handle that particular responsibility in order to preempt them from misuse. Prohibition didn't work back then, and now the war against drugs has again amply demonstrated that outlawing "stuff" doesn't work and is a big waste of money. Education and treating addiction as a curable disease demonstrably do work, however.

As far as interpreting the gun clause in the Constitution, that's for the judiciary to decide when laws limiting this putative right are challenged.

The Feds eventually 'nationalized' the standards for commercial driving licenses. But, when I was 17, I passed the commercial driving license test in Texas in a VW bus. A VW bus is 9" longer than a VW Beetle. I was legally allowed to drive 18 wheelers for 10-20 years with that license. I never did attempt to drive one, but one could certainly question the value of that sort of law and, fortunately, they finally did something about it.

I'm not too sure what to do about reasonable gun control. I agree, guns are tools and the issue is education. I really don't like the idea of the government being the only owner and dispenser of force. As we've seen with the current Administration, it's not just what the laws say, but how you happen to chose to enforce them.

But, having been raised Unitarian, I also am not too found of the idea of sitting around on a church pew communing with friends and kindred spirits when some soldier of the Lord comes to teach us "libral humanists' a lesson. And, as Numerian points out, do we really need armed guards in the "Land of the free" just to worship in a manner of our own choosing?

But, having been raised Unitarian, I also am not too found of the idea of sitting around on a church pew communing with friends and kindred spirits when some soldier of the Lord comes to teach us "libral humanists' a lesson. And, as Numerian points out, do we really need armed guards in the "Land of the free" just to worship in a manner of our own choosing?

The counter argument is, of course, what if the potential shooter knew or at least suspected that some of those sitting in the pews were carrying legally.

Not trying to be obtuse, but I'm not grasping the counter argument. I'm not sure that I was making an argument in the quoted section as much as stating a feeling. I do remember seeing a gun in a Unitarian church. I was in the late sixties and the person that brought it introduced it into a group discussion to make a point about the ease of having a handgun present (and before you could get a legal carry permit in Texas). It caused a fair amount of outrage amongst the other participants.

I haven't spent much time in a Unitarian (or any other) church in the last 35-40 years, but I suspect the likelihood of finding anyone in a Unitarian church carrying a gun is still pretty low.

against gun control. Basically, it's if you take away our guns, only criminals will have guns. But every time there's a shooting incident, the gun lobby argues that if people on the scene had weapons, they would have handled the situation promptly -- and knowing this lots of people who might be tempted to do something foolish would be deterred.

The counter-counter-argument is that if everyone is armed, we're back to the Wild West and lots of innocent bystanders are going to get shot up.

The sensible answer probably lies somewhere in the middle.

I once saw someone breaking into my neighbors house. I decided that it wasn't reasonable to confront the person without a gun. Once I decided that, I decided if anyone ought to confront them with a gun, it probably ought to be the police. So, I called the police.

This turned out to have been a fortunate decision on my part as the person breaking into the house had been given some very bad advice by the landlady, particularly since my neighbor had not finished her lease yet and moved out.

I met him briefly at the end of the incident, once he had stopped shaking from the police having drawn down on him. He was intending to be the new tenant once my existing neighbor had moved out. I think he decided that I was probably crazy and didn't want to live next door to someone like me, as he never moved in. I wonder what he would have thought if I hadn't had the sense to let the police handle it? Fortunately I live somewhere where, in general, the police are pretty good and reasonable people. And, yes, I'm white and middle-class, and I'm sure that has some effect on my perception of my local police.

Except crazy people, who talk guns into killing people.

There is no doubt that there are a number of people wandering around in society that present a threat to others due to their mental instability. I know this from having served as a director of several nonprofit service organizations whose boards decided it was prudent to insist on a psychological evaluation for applicants who would be dealing with the public in sensitive matters. This was deemed necessary not only to protect both the public from harm but also the organization from suit. The consequences are well illustrated by the recent experience of the Roman Catholic Church.

The US has generally swept mental illness and instability under the rug, both as a health care matter and a public safety issue. There needs to be greater recognition of the need for evaluation and treatment, as well as measures to prevent untoward occurrences. If companies see it proper to deal with this issue for self-protection as well as protecting the public, the government should also, since it is charged with the general welfare.

This is a sensitive issue that needs to be debated. My view is that psychological testing should be required at certain points, beginning in grade school. A lot of psychological issues could be dealt with early on. Prevention is the best form of cure.

I am also very concerned that the US military has relaxed its standards in this regard, and the consequence is that people who are not psychologically qualified to handle the responsibility are being given access to equipment and training that can be seriously misused.

He left a four page letter decrying liberals and gays. Perhaps he read Ann Coulter and decided to deal with liberals using something a bit more powerful than a baseball bat. He certainly knew the Unitarian Church housed liberals; they even had a sign outside welcoming gays.

"The 58-year-old unemployed engineer" (what is it about engineers? - kidding, I am one) ...had apparently been out of work since 2006, and believed liberals were taking jobs he should have...

Nothing wrong with that thinking - I know I'd prefer to hire a right thinking conservative any day over one of them libruls.

I would suspect that in psychological jargon this guy "snapped." Usually it can be seen coming — in hindsight. This is the result of a cultural denial of mental illness and imbalance. People close to the person affected simply suppress the obvious signs.

ouch.

Investigators described Adkisson as a former member of an Army airborne unit...

imho. God is supposed to be an enlightening and enlarging presence in our lives and spirits, not a an isolationist influence nor a cause to be more exclusionary than we are naturally...Thanks ES...S

_{"I beseech you in the bowels of christ think it possible you may be mistaken."}

think "Bloods and Crips and Hells Angels" too, since those criteria are so widely drawn that they encompass them as well.

(Think the Green Mountain Boys, Rogers Rangers, or the modern neighborhood watch, think Megan Alert.) A well regulated militia was one that 1) turned out, 2) furnished its own private arms and equipment for the arms in the regulated quantities, 3) had a semblence of organization, and 4) occassionally met or drilled.

We have our crime problems down here in St. Maarten, which I put down to poor investment in education, social services, police force and other things. You can read all about the many dramas on the SXM PE Front page if you are interested, but I though you all would appritiate these.

Gunn and guns - 17th July 2008

Guns for everyone - 13th September 2007

How a gun is supposed to help when trying to get hold of the fire department I don't know, I guess so you can shoot them for being late?

Caribdude

And also the man playing Daddy Warbucks, who apparently wrestled the shooter to the ground.

It reminds me of that guy who stalked an abortion doctor and shot him dead one night while he was eating dinner in his kitchen. He had heard that abortion was murder. He was sane, and quite methodical, and when you come right down to it, following with precise logic the teachings of the pope himself. Since the state was doing nothing to stop all this abortion murder, he took it into his own hands.

What do Hannity, O'Reilly, and Coulter, and Savage, and Goldberg teach? Liberals are evil. The only way to deal with them is with violence. These guys will deny completely that anything they write or say could possibly lead to someone acting out like Adkisson did, who of course will be described as a lunatic. There won't be a hint of regret or responsibility by the right wing for this, because they just don't do accountability.

Meanwhile, millions of their followers will silently be chuckling tonight over this incident, since liberals need a little violent reminder now and then to show them just how much they are damaging America.