grawk

Yes, but the entirety of the data for Australia would be lost in rounding for the US. They're just not comparable in any real measure. Australia has less than 300 murders a year, the US has 13,000. Let's stipulate that if you could conceivably get everyone, including the criminals, to give up all the firearms in this country, and have them destroyed, and institute gun laws similar to those in Australia, we could in all likelihood eliminate every school shooting, and prevent dozens of senseless shootings. Dozens. Sure, and there were none prior to that one shooting. There was 1 shooting.

I'd love a speedmaster. This is the closest I have now:

My main issues the government doesn't reverse itself. That it happened one time (prohibition) is remarkable. And hasn't happened since then.

Especially to a slave.

There's a difference between it being legal to own slaves and having the right of self defense. There's a difference between it being legal to smoke in public and having the right to marry whom you will. There's a difference between it being legal to beat your wife and having the right to a free press. Right now, there's the right to marry who you want, but it's not legal most places. Beyond the rights issue tho, all making guns illegal is going to do is make it harder for people to legally defend themselves. Our existing smuggling networks will work just as well for guns going north as they have for guns going south, drugs going north, people going north, etc. Shit, you could probably order a container load of machine guns from eastern europe without much difficulty. I get that you want people to not shoot defenseless kids. I don't want people to shoot defenseless kids either. I also don't want battered women to have their former spouses kill them while violating the restraining order against them because they've been left defenseless because they can't keep a gun at home. Every household in switzerland has a machine gun. And no gun crime. And almost no crime of any kind. In israel, most of the country is armed to the teeth. Guns aren't the problem. They're just the tool used in the problem. And yes, we're on our way to a police state. Do you want to go farther down that road? Personally, I'd prefer we turn that trend around.

Kids will worry for a couple of days whether or not we ban guns. Then they'll go on with their lives. There really isn't a risk of this happening at any given school. Way less likely than getting struck by lightning. If kids are really worried, get them counseling so they can know that. Taking away rights because of a 1 in a million event is how police states happen.

Here's a brief overview of one counter argument: CT is already hugely antigun, is surrounded by anti-gun states. Gun control doesn't stop things like this unless you go door to door collecting every gun in the country. And I guarantee that wouldn't go well. But the argument now is just crass. On both sides. If you're against guns just because of tragedies, then fine, but outlawing something because 100 people in 300 million have gone crazy and shot up crowds is like banning gay marriage because some gay people are promiscuous, or banning cars because sometimes people ram buildings with them in order to steal ipads.

Yup, I'm a dyed in the wool gun nut. I think this is a tragedy. I also think we shouldn't make public policy based on highly publicized outliers.

It'd definitely be reasonable to arm our teachers when classroom shootings become regular enough to not get attention on the news. Until then, maybe not. As to why there seems to be more violence in the US than other first world countries, it's probably related to the extreme demographic and sociological diversity, causing more societal friction.

Wow, I dunno what to say. I didn't realize Cincinnati was an amish university.

My transcript from 1988-94 is all computerized. I really doubt your school wasn't computerized in 99

Werd

Started final acceptance testing for my second cluster. Less than a month til my life becomes somewhat normal. And then I go to hawaii for a week.

They work great together.

This

no, it's a great choice.

cool, i missed tapatalk

but if you ever forget to return your card, you'll automatically get the worst movie available delivered to your house, and your credit card will be charged $29.95 for your convenience.

yay bicki. If someone isn't yelling at you there, you're not doing it right.

ok this time it worked. I posted a picture with a in it and it was filled with unprocessed html

Emoticons generate weirdness now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1S_vA0ougg