First, I need to address the "no politics" rule & what will get me 'flamed'.

I am no way supporting, demeaning, or otherwise expounding on either parties platforn or agenda. All of my comments are direct & aimed at an individual. No way do I imply the whole party is responsible.

Now, as I understand, "politics" is the support or rejection of any party policy. I have tried to walk the thin line of truism without generalizing all within the same party.

With the news coverage full of the Conn. school tragidy, there have been several threads trying to rationalize the happenings. Let me say loud & clear " There is no way we will ever be able to rationalize an irrational act.

Our gov. is looking for the magic fix, one size fits all cure. We all would truly love the day we would be free from news alerts such as today's. Lets be realistic, unless we are all willing to give up all existing freedoms & live a totally controlled life, that is not going to happen.

We all need to lobby our congressional reps & tell them to concentrate on the cause. That folks is mental health issues. They need to STOP trying for a cure by treating the symptoms of a sick society. Get to the cause & fund mental health care, research, & outreach programs to keep these people from feeling the need to make such a major act to get attention.

Remember as all try ro make sense of an irrational act, they are just delaying, ignoring, or missing the cause. We are a GREAT nation, let us serve all instead of ignoring & denying some needs, tell our leaders "go for the cure & stop wasting time on band-aids for the symptoms"

In closing, my working life was spent in maintenence.(40+ years as a machinist) The first thing I learned was time is best spent preventing fires instead of putting them out

Is the TRUTH political? Nope, It's the damn truth.

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Dum vivo cano

I've already said that I think sensational media frenzy fuels these acts.

But mental health issues need consideration, too. Still, if these mass murderers go off meds already provided...

Whatever the subject, you should always remember that there are three things that drive those who legislate

1) How will it affect my chances of election. For example, should I go with this particular party dogma.

2) How much will it cost. Might impact taxes, therefore refer to point 1.

3) How much risk is involved if things go pear-shaped. If it goes bad will point 2 and especially 1 be impacted.

Don't get any funny ideas that they are in this for the good of the nation or us as individuals. To do that they would have to be statesmen and women, and we have probably left that era behind.

maybe he was on psychiatric drugs that flipped him out?

every read the small print in magazines and commercials?

bad stuff

Well said sir.
However the media outlets have already made their minds
up on the "problem". It's easier to blame the guns or ammo,
or magazines. To tackle the real problems with todays world
they have neither the will nor the guts to go forward and offer
any suggestions to make this a safer planet. To do so would
have to include the primary discussion of family, morals, and
(doing the right thing). The easiest route will always be taken
in looking for a scapegoat and furthering their agendas.
They truly do not want to face the truth.
Because the real problems are mostly created by the lack
of the principles they so basically despise.

Chuck

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They hold no Quarter

You have hit the nail on the head, we have become a principle-less society.

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Dick

Without good insurance mental health care is extremely expensive and some practitioners won't even take insurance; you have to pay up front and then fight the insurance company for reimbursement. Then, as was mentioned before, you have to keep them on their meds.

I agree with cussadamngun it will so easy to just blame guns. How do you explain the unexplaiable....The only person that knows what was going on in that sick head took the answer to HELL with him. Sadly this isn't political, today it is a national tradady. With long lasting ramifications.

What is not being said is the Truth. In disagreement with one poster, yes, the truth IS political when your whole system is built on lies.

The truth is the lack of personal accountability, get God out society, PC retarded, it's all about ME agenda of the last 30 years is what is truly responsible for these events. We no longer have decent, moral, respectful children as a society. We have give it to me now, morals are relative, narcissistic little consumers for children.(Excluding of course the 25% of the country who still raises their children the right way). Therefore, these I'm unhappy so somebody else must be at fought, everyone's going to pay events will continue to happen.

Then you throw in the added bonus of the mass media making you famous.

The current system can't stand illumination, scrutiny and a results based review. So what happens, these same maggots have to have something evil to spin the blame to and there folks, is where their rabid support of gun control truly comes from.

The truth I was referring to was well put by cussedemgun. Yes, and I agree it is being politicized and sensationalized to the extreme. but as he pointed out it is both parties that wont get to the meat of the matter and do something worthy to prevent these nut cases from acting out. No one on either side is doing this.

I get your point and the OP's as well.

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Dum vivo cano

"We all need to lobby our congressional reps & tell them to concentrate on the cause. That folks is mental health issues. They need to STOP trying for a cure by treating the symptoms of a sick society. Get to the cause & fund mental health care, research, & outreach programs to keep these people from feeling the need to make such a major act to get attention."

I agree, but I would add that the real foundation to our societal ills is spiritual, and starts in our homes, and then manifests in the area of mental health, or the lack thereof. We are so enamored of "crime and punishment" that we are prone to fall into it's many traps. If we are going to lock them up anyway, why not do more than medicate them while they are there, instead of providing a place of concentrated instruction on how to do harm?

There will always be those that think any claim of mental illness, by anyone, is just an excuse; I can tell you that a 20 year old who kills a bunch of little ones and himself is/was severely mentally ill. Those that come up with ideas that supplant that fact, may need mental health care themselves.

And then, there will always be that group of myopic folks that will put there agenda right in the way of viewing the whole picture of what is actually going on, whatever their agenda is, be it gun rights, gun control, or any other polarizing political position. I see that better solutions are there, and easily accessible, if calm thought and dialogue is pursued on both sides of these issues.

I am glad I belong to Jesus. Flapjack.

I'm still trying to figure out why the other thread was locked... Seemed to me like a good discussion of the problems of our society and a way for folks to cope with this horrible tragedy.

So many of our elected "betters" are now craving to play to their public audience. The innocent children haven't been taken from the school yet and the firearms kibuke play starts again. I have never understood the type of thinking that puts forth the idea that someone who is willing to commit murder, the ultimate crime, whether through mental illness, anger, vengeance, or some other reason, is now suddenly going to comprehend they will REALLY be in trouble and obey another gun law.

Oh yeah, the guy who does the shooting is going to be in real big trouble now if they pass another gun law!

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Dick

Why is "pear shaped" bad?

I like pears!

crazy cant be fixed.....

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Aim small miss small

I wish there was an obvious solution to this problem, that being people who are "mentally ill" and what to do about them. I can speak from long experience dealing with offenders with various "mental health issues". Right away the different parts of the court system don't want to deal with them. The states attorney is concerned the offender will get off due to this issue, the defense lawyer will bring in "experts" to state the defendant is not responsible for their actions, and in the end they'll strike a plea deal for a reduced sentence and place that person on probation. I've seen hundreds of people on probation who didn't know the difference between left and right. Most on them are kept on medications, some of you out there are familiar with the "thorazine shuffle". The majority of people in our communities who are "mentally ill" will never harm anyone. Sorting out the dangerous ones from the non-violent is more art than science. And this problem isn't confined to the US, it's a world wide problem. Our government is going to "react" to this but I believe it will be based more on emotion than reality and have a limited affect on the problem.

I've got a nephew who has mental issues, and he's now in his mid-20s. Not much "record" on him though, as usual. Other than the parents getting him committed to a halfway house in his mid-teens he's got no "record."

Sadly, his mom and dad are powerless to get him to take his meds, and laws make it impossible for them to have him evaluated without the guy's permission. The kid's "rights" protect his privacy on his mental issues (HIPAA privacy laws) AND protect his right also to refuse treatment and/or medicine.

He's a real loner, feels everything and everyone in established society is "evil," and he can't hold down a job. He can't stand living at home with his parents, so every few months he's off to some other part of the country to find a job and live. His father is his "enabler." He'll get some low-paying job . . . but he soon quits and he comes crawling back home again . . . over and over.

He's a walking time bomb, but just one of tens of millions of them out there who are privacy protected and off their meds . . . and most will never "go off."

Still . . . one day I wouldn't be amazed if he makes the news. If this happens, there will be some who will blame whatever weapon he can steal, when the problem is always the mentally unstable person who falls through the cracks.

There's a big red elephant in the room, and yet people don't want to discuss and fix the real problem.

I am not sure my comments belong here, but lets see what happens. About 15 years a go while in a community college I met a guy and we ended up becoming friends. We had no girlfriends at the time so we hung out, took his Toyota 4x4 off roaring, installed car stereos, etc. Over time as we got to know each other better I learned that he was a diagnosed scitzophenic who was getting medical and psych help for it. He was a former gang member who had gotten out of that lifestyle and was doing ok for himself in life. Later in life I started dating my best friend who is now my wife, he also became involved with his girlfriend, got married and had a boy. Now fast forward 12 years or so....I found out from the news and a phone call from the local news that this same guy had killed his 5 year old boy by freakin' cutting his head off. What changed? It turns out the guy....my friend had stopped taking his meds and going to his medical treatments. He flipped and in a nutshell thought his son was evil and some sort of Anti-Christ so he was riding the world of eveil by killing his son.
OK, so what happened to my friend? Was he given life in jail for murder, nope he was given life is a psych ward for being insane. Va. Beach man who decapitated son to remain in facility | WVEC.com Norfolk - Hampton Roads

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Livin’ Life From The Blindside

I couldn't agree with you more my friend. Just last evening at work, there was a small discussion taking place about this most recent tragedy. One of the younger people (22 years old) who fits your description to a T, had just stopped babbling about how she won't eat chicken that's still on the bone (because mommy always removed it from the bone for her). She then managed to put her Iphone down for a minute and say that "assault weapons like that guy used (she was referring to the Bushmaster) should be outlawed." She said that people don't need a gun like that for anything other than killing. When I tried to explain to her that the gun she was talking about was nothing more than a semi-automatic rifle, the same type of action many hunters use, that it merely "looks like" a military styled gun and alot of people love shooting them at a range or for hunting with where legal, she picked up her Iphone and ignored me. What amazes me about her is how intelligent she truly is but doesn't have a clue about the real world (she can't believe that anyone would think the reaity series Amish Mafia isn't reality). What's really bothersome is the fact that people with this mentality are everywhere and their generation will soon be taking on leadership roles in this country. I'm glad I've "crested the peak" in life because its only going to get worse!

I came back to add this - There is a poll being taken in our daily newspaper that asks what you think was the greatest cause of the latest shooting spree. There were 6 answers you could choose from. So far out of 902 votes cast, 53% said a breakdown in today's moral fiber, 13% said ineffective gun control, 12% said other, 9% said violent video games, 8% said lack of parental discipline, and 5% said shortcomings in security. This tells me that 70% of those that voted feel there is indeed a breakdown in our moral society and 30% feel its something else, ineffective gun laws, or a lack of security. This also tells me that the general public is finally starting to get it right and that those sitting comfortably in Washington, state capitals, or pushing for more gun laws had better wake up!