Readers' Comments

Let us ban guns until we bring down the violence level, internet, drug abuse, mental stress etc. to the 60s level. Gun is not feasible now.

It seems pretty straightforward to me - guns were designed to kill things, including people. I am guessing that even if those teachers had guns, they would have been too busy and focused on protecting the children physically and emotionally to have run for their weapons first. I can't imagine a teacher setting the example in front of her students that the solution to problems is grab a gun and shoot somebody - to kill of course. I can't imagine a school where teachers are allowed to have guns to protect their students or themselves (as proposed in several places). I can't imagine as a teacher having to endure a professional development class on using weapons in the school setting - gun safety, target practice, how to prevent accidentally shooting your students or fellow teachers, the psychology of killing someone and when to make that determination, what happens if you can't pull the trigger and the legal ramifications of shirking that responsibility. . . No, it's just better in my mind to spend all that time and money teaching our children that violence is not the solution to violence.

Thank you for this letter. I cannot agree more. There are definite characteristic that each of these mass shooters have exhibited. More funding for people with mental illness would be a good place to start. Having more education available on the characteristics would also be helpful. I personally believe these mass shootings where planned out and executed by very sick individuals and their had to be people in their lives that knew? There where signs and getting help should not be so hard. Medicating people and then putting them back out on the streets is not the answer for the mentally ill. We all should become more aware and involved. We should become good at preventative measures. The question needs to be asked why are there so many mass shooters now? the level of violence that kids see today really blows me over. Being a child in the sixties I know there was violence but the kids seemed not as exposed to it and far more innocent. I really feel sorry for the children of today. A child hood seems to also be a thing of the past. I have gone to movies that are extremely violent and inevedently if you look around some parent decided it was ok to bring a child. I also believe the constant stream of violence kids are exposed to is not good for developing minds. The electronics for kids should not be used as a babysitter. The kids of today cannot even take a ride in a car without being plugged in seems like there is a time to shut off the tv, cell phones, and start engaging in actual conversations. Teaching some compassion towards others can also be done in so many ways. Teaching a child to respect other living things like the family pet is also a good way to start. I see a lot of young parents that allow the children to use a animal as a play thing not as a living breathing creature. These are just some observations. I think we as a society need some active prevention. I do not want to become good at grieving.

I agree there needs to be more National focus on the types of drugs prescribed to children just to calm them down. One reply mentioned that there may only be 1000 cases were the shooter was identified as a patient prescribed medications to control their mood or psychological condition but isn’t 1000 cases enough to point out that the FDA needs to get involved and question the effects these drugs have on a person’s psychological health. I am all for gun control but the discussion takes precious time away from the real issue of mental health.

Dear Craig:

My grandfather taught me how to shoot, and I can assure you that the Bushmaster .223 for civilian use is not the kind of weapon my family has used for hunting deer.  The Bushmaster is a assault-style rifle designed to kill human beings, not deer -- the primary market for the military class version of the weapon, sometimes called an M4, is soldiers for use in war to kill other soldiers.  Based on the market/purchaser type (civilian, law enforcement, or military), it has different mechanisms for how rapidly it fires and what size of magazines can be used to fire rounds of ammunition as well as other features (like grenade launchers), and different rules for who can possess it.

I understand that the NRA prefers that such weapons be called merely "rifles," and not be called "assault" weapons, and that the federal Assault Weapons Ban referenced specific models of guns along with other rifles, pistols, and shotguns with specified features for the ban -- but manufacturers worked around these rules to provide models that did not fire as many rounds as quickly as weapons subject to the AWB (and were not allowed to use the larger capacity magazines) or the pre-existing ban on fully automatic machine guns. Such weapons are still deadly though less deadly than the more rapid or continuous firing versions. The firing speed for the civilian version of the weapon depends in part on the speed of the shooter's trigger finger.

But, I think most Americans understand that the style of weapon used here to rapidly cause mass casualties at the elementary school in Connecticut is an assault weapon in the most basic sense of the word. Consistent with the style of weapon, as opposed to a six-round pistol for example, the coroner who examined the bodies of several of the dead children said that all of them suffered three to 11 gun shot wounds each. The "feat" of mowing down 26 human beings in short order is more easily accomplished with a Bushmaster .223 style weapon that a six-shooter a person would have to load and reload and reload and reload and reload and reload and reload some more to fire that many shots into that many victims.

The state's chief medical examiner also noted that, as for the ammunition, "the bullets are designed in such a fashion that the energy . . . is deposited in the tissue and so the bullet stays in" the body of the victim. See http://video.msnbc.msn.com/msnbc/50210025#50210025, Interview with Dr. H. Wayne Carver, II (12-15-12). You may quibble about whether that design, or caliber or speed, is intended to maximize damage because you believe the particular bullet used bullet does not "expand"/explode like some banned ammo, but I stand by what the coroner said, even though the location of a wound is one of the biggest factors in its deadliness. Beyond that, there has been no specific public confirmation yet about whether the ammo was hollow point bullets or full metal jacket ones.

Your suggestion that attributing any blame to the weapon is "neurotic at best" is quite frankly callous at the least. Let's reframe that, nuclear bombs don't kill hundreds of thousands of people, people kill people -- except without the capacity for such mass destruction in the span of a few moments fewer people would die by the hand of one man. 

Similarly absurd is your suggestion that people expressing concern want emotionally troubled people "rounded up." I think reasonable people simply do not want an emotionally troubled young man to have access to weapons like the Bushmaster. 

It is fascinating that you chose Japan as an example of how a murderer can kill without guns as with the terroristic poison gas attack in the subway a few years ago. But, let's look at Japan, which has some of the strictest gun control laws in the world.  In 2008, the U.S. "had over 12 thousand firearm-related homicides. All of Japan experienced only 11 . . . ," as noted in Max Fisher's piece from earlier this year in The Atlantic magazine. See http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/07/a-land-without-guns-how-japan-has-virtually-eliminated-shooting-deaths/260189/

Nevertheless, there are a range of factors that affect overall homicide rates in countries as well as cities, including poverty and culture. As Michael Moore pointed out in "Bowling for Columbine," Canada has a similar rate of gun ownership (including lots of hunting rifles) as the U.S. but a much lower homicide rate.  

I stand by our article's statement that the ready accessibility of weapons that make it easier to kill more people faster in fact makes it easier to kill more people faster, and that this is a problem. But, it's more than that, it's a series of tragedies waiting to happen, and the massive loss of life in Connecticut is a heart-wrenching example of that.

We need to fund Mental Health services for the mentaly ill. We need to have resources for the parents and friends that suspect and fear for a mentally ill person if they suspect they might turn violent. Also there ought to be a data base that people can report people who might become violent so that in a background check for gun sale, it will show up and the person will be denied. Another thing is to take action against the gun shows that allow people to purchase guns. In Virginia there is not a limit on the amount of guns you can buy in one day, so people from Maryland and DC come there to purchase their guns. I could go on and on but the only thing that is going to work is to force our elected officals both state and federal to write the bills that will keep guns out of the hands of unstable people. So many groups have worked tirelessly to get recognition of the severity of this problem. Also another thing is to have a federal law overthrowing the Stand Your Ground law in the 24 states that have this law. Floridians have used these laws to kill two unarmed innocent teenagers. We need help, but we need to work on our elected officials shut down their Email system, jam their Facebook and Twitter accounts with our outrage and call for action.

As long as we continue to refer this to exploitation by it's Frank Luntz cute, patriotic phrasing we have ceded part of the battle. We should be referring to this corporate profiteering for what it is 'The Right to Exploit'.

Connecticut gun laws were not so tough as to protect the children from the murderer's mother stockpiling deadly weapons in her home, including reportedly the rapid-firing assault rifle that was used to fire multiple bullets at first-graders -- six-year old little boys and girls -- murdering them in cold blood.  The purpose of such assault weapons and their ammunition is to inflict as much massive, deadly damage to the human body as possible as quickly as possible, stealing the lives from the victims who die painful and terrible deaths. Most Americans are rightly concerned about the consequences of the widespread availability of these tools for perpetrating mass murder.

I'm not pro-gun, but this seems to be a knee-jerk reaction to any violence that occurs. As one person pointed out, before the mid 60s there were guns in America and fewer gun laws than we have today. But these random/mass killings did not occur. What has changed? One thing is the use of psychotropic drugs. These powerful drugs were taken by a large number of people who ended up killing. More often than not, the person becomes aggressive or violent, or commits suicide, without killing someone else, so the media pays no attention. I think it would be better for our society to have a discussion of underlying issues that lead to this kind of violence than to simply look for easy answers which are really just bandaids.

Yes there will be business that treat their employee's poorly. There will also be employers that treat their employee's great. This is a style argument. Do we want a world where (metaphor here) all parents are required to raise their children a specific way, you can't do more, can't do less. you must raise them a certain way. OR do we have the freedom as parents to raise our children the way we see fit.

Yes there is a major difference with some companies between a parent and children compared to employer and employee. Especially more common in large employers were people can truly become a number, but their are also similarities, of which I have choose use for the purpose of the metaphor.

In the end, with right to work, it is us the people who have a right to work for good employers, the right to excel and bargain for compensation when we provide value, and if they don't compensate us, we take our value we can provide a business to someone else.

My mother was a manager for the state for 35 years, I cant begin to count all the times she had to keep staff that would blatantly tell her "I don't have to come in at 8, you cant fire me". her staff was 3 times the size it should have been because she, as a manager was not allowed to manage. So right to work moves us away from Cuba and more towards opportunity.

In Cuba, for example, there is a person assigned by the state to have the role of taking faxes of the fax machine and distributing the fax. When they are sick, faxes are not distributed. Because the organizing body says only fax people can distribute faxes. This is a true story. So faxes will be un answered, not processed. And processors cannot do their job either. The pay sucks, the system does not work, there is no way to move up.

My father, Brother, Mother were all in unions. Unions have been around for hundreds of years. The concept is great. What we have today is corruption at the highest level in unions. I remember a meeting a co-worker was in with the AFLCIO where they were trying to work this deal for all members to purchase xyz through the union. It was a shady deal, do shady for them. The AFLCIO guy who was championing the deal later that day said to, I will call him Mr Partner, said to him, "If this deal doesn't go through, your gonna find my body floating in the f(explicit) river" being 100% truthful. The deal didn't go through, he was never heard of again to my knowledge. There is massive power and money in orgs like the AFLCIO, all members are numbers. You have an ID.

As a glazier, the union now is acting as a staffing agency. No you don't even actually work for a company, the union places you on jobs. Apparently based on seniority, but in realty based on how quite you stay, and if you play along with their rules on their crap dental which is a joke, and the medicaless insurance. If I had the right to work, since I am good at what I do, safe working, understand what the customer wants and why they pay money. If I could work for a business that had the flexibility to reward value, I could be rewarded. I don't have that choice. So the business can excel and neither can I. I might as well be in cuba. At least it would be warm.

Scientists and engineers are more likely to accept facts over ideology given that a not doing so will destroy a career. Most scientists are Democrats or Independents (only about 7% are Republican). They may appear to lean left but are just realists, rejecting groups that choose not to acknowledge facts.