A MOMENT OF SILENCE FOR COLORADO VICTIMS

7/20/2012

Please give a moment of silence in the memory of the Colorado

shooting victims....Thank You.



Joe......

I will give a scream. How long are we going to put up with this?
Enough and too much!!!!

7/21/2012

Alice..

Our hearts are broken, their are mad people in this

world, insane ! Why does England have no guns and strict

laws not even the Bobbies carry a weapon unless their on

a man hunt ! We need to change laws....

Joe

Agree Joe. How many would have been killed or injured if the guy didn't have a gun? There is the argument and slogan by the NRA, that "If guns are outlawed, then only outlaws will have guns." A promotional argument.

Owning a gun is not the problem. Having a valid reason and a license is necessary. Concealed weapons are the problem. Why is it concealed?

The pro gun people are missing the point. Gun CONTROL is not gun elimination.

7/21/2012

Abe..

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Joe

I am fed up with guns. The gun owners can be perfectly sane and harmless one moment then lose it the next.

Anyone can become mentally unbalanced and let me assure you, they are far less dangerous
without a gun.

NRA has had its turn--it is time for a change.

A friend of mines daughter was in that incident and she is currently in hospital having had bullets tear through her abdomen she has lost a kidney and her spleen.
She is in critical condition Prayers for Farrah Soudani are needed.

It's a GREAT DAY...It's another day on top of the dirt!

David,

Praying your friend is okay.

Don, you can have your guns. You can have mine too. I am sick of them.
I won't get mad at you--Life is too short.

Gun statistics are a statistical lie. You cannot correlate a city or state's gun laws with the # of gunshot victims. Guns are purchased online, at gun shows and most anywhere; those who wish to have them, get them.

We also have the honor of arming the cartels in Mexico. The gun lobby is extremely powerful in this United States when you think of the $$ from manufacturing all the weapons, the stull that goes with them etc. Then we have those whose power is tied to the ownership of guns.

I guess as Zimmerman said about his killing the boy in Florida, "It's God's will." It was God's will for him to carry a gun, stalk the boy and engage in an altercation that ended in the boy's death.

I guess it's God's will that the young man in Colorado killed all those people. After all, it must be God's will because it certainly was not the will of their loved ones, their community and their nation that keeps making excuses for the sale and use of assault weapons in the U.S.

I guess it's God's will that keeps the gun lobby so powerful. Obviously, the will of the people isn't ending its power.

Like you, Alice, I am sick of it. Statistics be damned. My 43 year old sister was murdered by a crazed ex husband who shot off her apartment door. She awoke, grabbed her own gun from her nightstand (she was a trained and rated marksman) but she could not shoot a human, even knowing he would kill her. He took her gun from her, killed her and called 911 and gave them the gruesome details, bragging.

Yes, we need to read the gory details of those we love being murdered because people like her ex husband decided to go to a gun shop, buy a gun and bullets and drive to her apartment and murder her.

Then there was the young mother in Fort Myers, Fl who loved her downtrodden community and was active in making it better. Her child's father came and started an argument with her in the yard, ran in the house and came back out with the gun he had hidden when he lived there and shot her in front of their son and the community. If that gun wasn't there, she would be alive today.

These annecdotes are repeated over an over but mean nothing compared to the "freedom to bear arms" - yet, we are not free to have a loaded cannon, or a missile, or many other weapons. Just the gun, whatever its format.

When I lived on the sailboat my spouse insisted on guns on the boat that were locked in a cabinet because of pirates. A lot of good the guns in the cabinet would do if we were boarded. Most of the islands to which we sailed took our guns until we sailed away anyhow.

I was more afraid of three teenage sons getting hurt with the guns than their actual protection. I had more faith in our standard poodle, raised on the boat and fully believing it was hers - and if we didn't give a person permission to board she would have torn them to bits.

DK,

I am so sorry about your sister.

My former brother-in-law got drunk and jealous and blew a hole through his wife with a a high powered rifle.

SHE SURVIVED!

He was jailed and taught butchery--to my mind, flower arranging would have been more appropriate:)

Don and I agree on many things and I respect him, however when it comes to guns, we have our differences of opinion. He is trained in the use of guns and is competent. One cannot assume that every gun owner is competent or even sane. We can all point to incidents, as DK expressed, where someone got killed because a gun was handy. Even hunters have accidents. Most often it is the excitement of the moment when carelessness takes over. Circumstances can alter ones thinking or not thinking. Control, not elimination of guns is needed. That is my opinion.

Abe

If every gun owner were a Don J. Stephens, I'd have no problem with them.

Currently, gun laws are controlled by the lobbyists for the NRA. The money supporting the NRA comes from the gun manufacturers and those who manufacture everything related to the guns including sellers and buyers. Therefore, the gun manufacturers control the legislation. The lobbyists control the Congress. I do not think that was the intention of the founders of the United States of America. It was the intention of the founders that the people would have a say in their laws. The people no longer have a say; it is all controlled by money. Period.

As for the gun laws specifically, there are already laws that forbid the ownership of specific weapons. There is no reason not to expand those laws to include automatic weapons that allow murdererss to shoot non-stop with a magazine full of ammunition. There is no reason not to forbid the manufacture for sale of weapons that go directly to the Mexican cartels and the Russian mafia.

If a few people insist on gun ownership of a small weapon for protection or specific weapons for hunting, then the regulations governing their sale and ownership need to be stiff, including training (similar to driver licenses, also a weapon).

We have ruled out any Constitutional issue by allowing control to rest in the hands of the manufacturers. That's unconstitutional and a monopoly of power.
It has nothing to do with the right to bear arms originally granted to citizens whose recent experience included protecting themselves from their government and a country without a fully developed policing force.

7/22/2012

The victims, who will be forgotten and the killer will

get 24/7 publicity( this should be banned !)

List of beautiful people...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-18941544

Joe

I completely agree with Don on this one. Over the years I have stopped not one, not two, but three attempted breakins at our home because I have always been determined that I won't be a victim. The last attemp was just before Christmas last year, when a young man came to our back door at 2 AM. I was still up and saw him and went to the door with a large pistol in my hand. He left and I called the police. He did indeed have a felony warrant out for his arrest.

I grew up with guns in the home, I still have guns in my home, and here's a fact for you. I'm not going into a school, a mall, or a theater and start killing people. 99.9% of legal guns owners aren't going to either.

You cannot keep weapons, guns, knives, etc out of the hands of evil people. They will get them as they do now, no matter what the law is. You can however, make a conscious decision that you are not going to allow someone to harm you or your family, if there is something you can do about it.

DK, I'm seriously sorry about your sister, but she should have killed the sorry son of a bitch, and that would have been the end of it. You'd still have your sister, and the world would be a safer place without him in it.

More gun control is not the answer. If there is an answer, it's to confiscate every gun in the country. But the fact is the American people will simply not stand still for that, because whether you want to believe it our not, if they do that, it won't stop guns from getting into the hands of criminals, it will simply stop them from being sold to Don Stephens or to me, and believe me again when I tell you we are not the problem.

Again, it seems it is the assault weapons and those that fire lots of ammunition that are the weapons of choice for those who commit mass murders. At least stopping the sale of the bundles that went to the Colorado killer would be a step in the right direction.

My safety lies in a neighborhood where each watches out for the safety of the other. The police are here in a matter of seconds. I have had occasions to call them and they were timely.

I still vote for tight gun control. I might be negotiable on limits.

The problem seems to be if a neighborhood watch guy actually goes out and handles what could have very easily turned into another robbery or another home invasion, he gets arrested for it and has to stand trial for whatever the charge is against Zimmerman.

I fully believe that Zimmerman was worried about more robberies and was just trying to figure out what Martin was doing walking around the streets, and Martin became the aggressor. I think he would have beat Zimmerman to death by pounding his head against the sidewalk had Zimmerman not acted when and how he did.

So, neighborhood watches are great, but even with a good one, there is still a several minute time lapse before the law can arrive, and if your house is being broken into, or if someone has invaded your home, there's a good chance you won't have minutes to respond.

People, you know I'm a pretty liberal guy, but I just don't see a lot of room for comprimise on this.

I thought what Joe asked for was a moment of silence for the victims.

Just me.

Ann

Joe posted at 2:12, Alice replied at 9:25, so I think he got his moment of silence, and then it was back to business as usual. He didn't ask for the forum to be halted in its tracks for the next month.

E. Don,

I think it best that you and I are not on Zimmerman's jury. You are prejudiced in his favor and I against him.

He has lied so many times that I believe NOTHING he says.
He is full of it--and "it" is not truth.
My opinion.

7/24/2012

Alice....

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Cheers..Joe...

No, Alice, I'm not. But I do think he has been judged guilty by many, possibly even you, when nobody knows anything at all about the case, other than what they have read or heard in the media and then chosen to believe.

My question is how do you know what are lies and what are not lies? He told his version of what happened, and the fact is that the first officers on the scene obviously saw it that way also, because they didn't arrest him. He was only arrested after the media, fueled by hatred, raised so much hell that the people in the country got afraid of what might happen if they didn't take him in.

I don't believe the justice system should be threatened by anyone, and that is what happened.

I did read Zimmerman's 911 call, and it's plain the Martin boy had ran away, and Zimmerman had lost him. When the boy came back it was he, not Zimmerman, who was the aggressor. He was gone, why didn't he stay gone? I knew a man back home who was stomped to death on a sidewalk, so I know that if Martin was slamming Zimmerman's head into the sidewalk, he was doing it with the intent of hurting, possibly killing, the man. I would have shot him had I been in that situation.

It's easy to say Zimmerman shouldn't have followed the boy, but the fact was that there had been numerous break ins in that neighborhood, all by young black men, and Martin was a stranger there. He was also big enough that in the dark Zimmerman had no way to know how old he was. He was also big enough to seriously hurt or kill Zimmerman in a fight, and once again, Zimmerman was on neighborhood watch, and what do you think he should have been watching for? Old white women wandering around?

So, I'm not prejudiced for Zimmerman, but I think the facts that we do know bear out his story. And I think he was arrested because of public and media pressure, and not because they had a case against him.

I have opinions that can be altered by new information. I have some beliefs that are part and parcel of my very nature. I recognize that each of us is similar in that way. I believe that weapons are remnants of a time when life was threatened on a daily basis and every home had a shotgun. Arguments were settled with guns.

Today, we have police forces that do attempt to protect us in the most dire of circumstances, including cuts to forces. We have elaborate court systems to settle arguments. I do not live in an area with a formal neighborhood watch program; I live in a neighborhood. I live on a single block street where unusual activity is noticed, where my neighbor calls me at midnight to ask me if I knew my garage door was open, where I call my neighbor at work at 10:00 a.m. when I see her garage door open and no cars anywhere to be seen. I live on a street where many years ago a friend with an absolutely horrid looking vehicle arrived at my house at midnight after a long, difficult drive; and I had a knock at my door by another neighbor.

Guns provide the opportunity to make an immediate, permanent decision that might look different over time and consideration.

My only knowledge regarding the death of the young man in Florida is that he did not carry a weapon. There is no real opportunity for a court decision because he is not here to tell his side of the story - the rest is speculation based on sketchy details colored by opinion.

If one analyzes those with gun ownership absolutes, males tend to be on the side of gun ownership and females on the other side. Of course, there are exceptions. The warrior mentality is part of the war mentality and very natural to the instincts to protect. Females are more oriented (in general) by biology toward nurturing and compromise.

Personally, I believe the only way to honor those families who have lost loved ones is to debate the role of weapons in civil society and perhaps find a way to compromise for those who are set on keeping personal weapons and hunting weapons and preventing the accumulation of assault weapons and ammunition or selling them to violent elements in other countries.