grawk

Pet peeve. The AR15 is not uber-powerful. It's the US battle rifle because it's light, easy to shoot, and reliable. It's not powerful enough to use deer hunting in most states, however.

not making more laws isn't the same thing as turning our head.

The now what is "sometimes bad things happen". Society can't prevent them all. Stop giving publicity to the shooters, so at least no one can see it as a path to fame.

you can use home sharing to access the library, and then airplay to direct output on the remote system. There is also this: http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/21518/itunes-remote-control

itunes can control itunes on another computer

happys birthday

The reason why I am firmly opposed to any kind of gun control at this point is both that I think our laws are currently sufficient, and that most anti-gun legislation that has been proposed has been a back door gun ban. Charging a multi-dollar per round tax on ammunition, banning anything that can "penetrate a standard police bullet proof vest" (every rifle, basically), legislation requiring you keep your gun locked in a safe at your gun club (thus making it pointless for anything except use at said hunt club). It sucks when innocent people are hurt. It sucks when it is in schools, it sucks when it's in a traffic accident, it sucks when it's in the stock market. When guns are banned, it's still possible for someone who leans that direction to commit mass murder. The problem is that some people still feel like murder is an option. That someone can know that they can make a mark on history by blowing themselves up, or shooting up a school. Our laws protect the names of the victims, but our media promotes the criminals. We treat people who get treated for mental illness as criminals. We give lip service to stopping bullying, but it still happens every day, both on personal and institutional levels. Not only will banning guns not solve society's problems, I don't think it will even make a dent. If you want to make a difference toward preventing incidents like what happened today, say hi to someone who's marginalized. Listen to them when they talk. Help them if you can. Don't punish the law abiding people.

I use the 11" mba as my primary computer. I have a 21" imac that I effectively never use except as a server.

Ok what kind of gun can you ban to prevent a school shooting? Which color rifles are acceptable and what makes them different from the ones you think should be restricted, and what make them less likely to kill kids? Which laws stop criminals from breaking them while not restricting law abiding citizens? Which restrictions not already in place in Connecticut, Chicago, or Washington DC would make those places safer?

I'd either do 11" mba or 13" retinabook

air

Every law abiding citizen gets rid of their firearms. No more school shootings. Way more robberies, home invasions, car jackings, muggings, rapes, murders, etc, because the criminals decide not to follow the law.

therefore, it must not be the guns that are what matter, but the people.

Because not everyone who supports the 2nd amendment supports it for the same reason, just like not everyone who believes in gun control doesn't believe in the same things.

Prisons have 0 guns, so they must be pretty safe, right?

I don't think the government can stop every bad thing from happening. As mentioned earlier, cars kill a lot more people than guns, and no one wants to ban cars. The response from the government should be more to try and identify and help the people with mental illness, rather than punish the people who aren't committing crimes.

I don't consider removal of a basic right a positive response to a tragedy. I call it using a tragedy as an excuse to accomplish a political goal. They could have banned donuts after the port macarthur tragedy and in all likelihood had a similar result.

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.