With the horrific news from the States...............

[louise]

I am disgusted by an email I have just found in my Junk Box. It is a US company offering me a .45 caliber pistol, with bullets for $500.
Just how easy it would be to get it Mail Order I wouldnt know, but doesnt it make your blood run cold.

[Kaz]

Yes it does! What makes my blood run even colder, however, is the fact that they are talking now about arming teachers -to protect the children! Will the US never see sense with its gun laws?

[saundra]

they wont give up guns there
its a gun cultuer nothing will change
they were only 6/7 years old children
and the guns had been brought legally

[pederito1]

The gun offer was probably a scam Louise and even if it was not it would not have got through British Customs. Violence is american culture which leads them to attack so many countries not capable of defending themselves.

[TheOstrich]

Yes it does! What makes my blood run even colder, however, is the fact that they are talking now about arming teachers -to protect the children!

I read that yesterday, Kaz, a comment by someone supporting the gun lobby. IMHO, that individual is sick, just sick.

[Suff]

I had a really balanced reply here and then I installed ie10 forgetting that I was in preview and lost it....

Perhaps we might want to remember Hungerford and Dunblane and the fact that the gun laws, rushed in after Dunblane, without thought or balance (apparently), have done nothing but massively increase the number of hand guns on the streets or the instance of hand gun related murder.

We do not understand the US and it would behove ourselves to learn a bit about them before trying to pass judgement on them. I understand why they are saying what they do, even if I don't agree with all of it. Arming teachers is no more than a Knee jerk reaction, equally as bad as the post Dunblane pistol ban, which they would realise if they thought it all the way through.

This is tragic, is not helped by companies trying to make a fast buck out of it and moralising won't help. The only thing which will help, in this situation, is the slow, careful police work which will be done by the police and then slow and carefully thought out laws to try and prevent further instances. Those in power owe it to the dead and to their living relatives.

I am not confident that those who have suffered will get what they deserve.

[saundra]

suff i lose posts on here because there is another post
on here while i write
you have to click submit twice or something

we are all in cyber space i think

[Aggers]

Can't they understand that guns are made specifically for killing.

Will they never see sense ?

Why is it that we always seem to get the most heart-breaking news items just before Christmas ?

These sort of things just make me weep.

[pederito1]

Too tragic to joke about really but I can just imagine an OK Corral type shootout in classrooms. Guns however by themselves never killed anyone except in the unlikely event of going off accidentally, it is the wotsit who pulls the trigger and anyone determined can kill a lot of people with a can of petrol and a firework. Who is going to ban those?

[cromwell]

The first rampage shooting did not occur until 1966; guns have been around for centuries.
If you took away all guns tomorrow such a killer would use a knife or an axe. He would not kill as many, but he would still kill.
The underlying problem to me seems to be - why is western society producing so many disturbed and violent individuals?
If we could understand that, we really would be getting somewhere.

In the 1960's there were many, many more guns in private hands than there are now, including the ones that we have now banned - semi-automatic centrefire rifles and handguns.

Yet there were no massacres.

Why are we so violent and heartless now, where once we were not?