Originally Posted by PhiGam (Post 1597325)

Bowling for Columbine (I felt) did a great job in showing that the problem isn't that America has the most guns or the most historically violent people but rather that our news media desensitizes us to violence. Less guns won't curb gun deaths enough to even bother infringing on our second amendment rights, the only way to fix the problem is to eliminate the source (our forms of entertainment). Obviously there's way too much money involved for that to happen so we just need to accept, as a society, that this kind of thing is going to happen.

Originally Posted by shinerbock (Post 1597610)

Interesting. I think it extends a bit farther than media, but I have no doubt that it plays a substantial role.

I'm not for the politicization of these tragedies either, I just thought it was an interesting split for the opposing sides. Often, these shootings obviously favor one side of the argument, but I don't think they do here. Instead, you have tragic displays of gun violence, but that show the obvious weaknesses of the gun control agenda. Whether or not allowing guns could have prevented or mitigated the events, clearly criminals aren't dissuaded by even states with strict gun control policy (Ill.).

It was a sad week, and unfortunately there isn't always a solution.

Originally Posted by PhiGam (Post 1599853)

As a member of the NRA and somebody who got their first gun when I was 12 obviously I am biased. I don't understand how people can shoot another human being and I also can't understand how people think that taking away guns will curb violence when there are countries like Canada with higher gun ownership rates and far less violent crimes. There are gun laws outlawing automatic weapons now but they aren't hard to get, especially if you're on the wrong side of the law.