Cynical Nation

That was awesome that they interviewed Suzanna Gratia Hupp!

Her parents were both killed in the 1991 Luby's Luncheonette rampage, just as Carolyn McCarthy's husband and son were shot on the LIRR by Colin Ferguson, ONLY Suzanna Gratia Hupp came away with the RIGHT conculion from her brush with tragedy, whereas McCarthy came away with the WRONG one from hers.

Suzanna Gratia Hupp had a gun with her that day, but like a number of the soldiers from nearby Fort Hood, she left hers in the car.

When madman George Hennard drove his truck through the front window of Luby's they were all sitting ducks.

A single armed patron could've stopped that attack as it began.

Same is true for the LIRR shooting.

But while Suzanna Gratia Hupp went on to sponsor "right to carry a concealed weapon" laws in Texas, McCarthy became an ill-informed proponent of gun bans.

I think Jackie Mason said it best, "Anyone who favors strict gun control is a F*ckin' moron!"

I guess the respectful interval is over.

Well, your love for semi-automatic weapons is bullshit. People can carry arms and have arms that can defend themselves without the ability to murder dozens at a time.

You act as if you are the one with common sense, but I know that from my past discussions here that there is a lacking of any common sense on this issue here.

Here's the only sense on this issue, common, or otherwise - people have a right to violent self-defense. It's a natural, inalienable right.

Neither guns, ammunition, nor the "availability of guns" are to blame for the actions of demented sociopaths.

If there'd been a single armed passenger on the LIRR that night, Colin Ferguson would've probably been put down very early in that rampage.

The incident at the Appalachain School of Law proves that.

Two armed former cops and an unarmed ex-Marine confronted a shooter who'd began a shooting spree and brought the killer down.

Gun control laws don't reduce a criminal's access to guns, they merely disarm those inclined to obey the law - precisely the people you want armed.

I think Jackie Mason has it right.

PE, the majority of all handguns are "semi-automatic weapons." Do you understand what the term means?

That's the thing, many people seem to believe semi-automatic weapons = "some form of automatic weapon."

That is UNTRUE.

A semi-automatic weapon is one that fires one round per trigger pull.

You have to pull the trigger for each and every round.

Many newspapers bolstered this erroneous view by noting that Cho fired 172 rounds in just nine minutes!

That merely required him to pull the triggers a little less than twenty times per minute - a feat that is very easy to do.

>That merely required him to pull the triggers a little less than twenty times per minute - a feat that is very easy to do.

Yep. Even with a six-shooter.

Yes, I do Barry .. but hey you can argue that you know more about the operation of guns.. and the fact is that you do.. so you could keep asking me questions to show how much you know as opposed to how much I know.

Yes, you can play games, ask me questions, call me a f*ckin' moron when I don't know the answer, but all of that is bullshit. The fact is that we can limit the types of weapons that are sold in this country and those limits could still allow the average citizen to defend him or herself.

Relax a bit, PE. My point is not to make you look stupid. I guess I'm trying to figure out what kind of limits on weapons you'd like to see that would've prevented Cho's rampage. The truth is that he didn't have an assault weapon, he didn't have a high caliber weapon, he didn't have an extended magazine, he didn't have "cop killer" bullets or any of the ususal suspects.

The guns he used were not exotic in any way, and were very run-of-the-mill weapons commonly used for self-defense, which you claim to support. Based on that, I'm struggling to figure out what kind of limits on guns you'd like to see that would've prevented this massacre but "still allow the average citizen to defend him or herself."

I'm pretty sure no one here called you "a moron" PE. I'd have to go back over the posts (and I will), but I'm certain Barry didn't and I don't think I did either.

I did quote Jackie Mason who said, "Anyone who favors strict gun control is a F*ckin' moron!" Not at all, the same thing.

For one thing, you never claimed to "favor strict gun control," you took issue with "semi-automatic weapons that can kill dozens at a time."

That led to Barry's reasonable presumption that perhaps you, like many others, mistakenly believed that semi-automatic weapons were in some way "automatic," as machine guns and Uzis are. The MSM has encouraged that misconception.

When Colin Ferguson murdered over a dozen people on the LIRR train I was ashamed so many New Yorkers proved their dumbness by blaming "the gun" or "the availability of guns," when Colin Ferguson was an illegal immigrant and they (like me) should've, in my view, taken that opportunity to blame "the influx of illegal aliens for that crime."

OK, I mostly blamed a demented homocidal maniac named Colin Ferguson, but, by extension, if we were tougher on illegal immigration, Ferguson wouldn't have been here to commit those crimes.

The problem with gun laws is that criminals DON'T OBEY laws!

And there's already a huge black-market in guns, especially in places like NYC & Wash, D.C. where virtual gun bans are in place.

Moroever, the worst mass murder committed by a U.S. civilian on American soil was done with a dollar's worth of gasoline, a small container and a makeshift wick, when Julio Gonzalez killed 87 people in the Happyland Social Club fire on March 25th, 1990.

There are no laws that will stop deranged people from doing deranged things.

It's like the situation at the Appalchian Law School, where two armed students and an ex-Marine brought down a killer. Those two armed students who brought that shooter down were on that proverbial "wall" for all of us and I KNOW that we, to paraphrase Jack Nicholson, WANT them on that wall, we NEED them on that wall, and I'm sure that they'd prefer that we not question the manner in which they provide that common defense that allows us all to sleep better at night (OK, they weren't law enforcement, but that's immaterial, here), I'm pretty sure that they'd rather we just say thanks...and leave it at that.

PE, I think you're looking at the wrong end of the equation.

You're looking at the problem as one of "object/tool control," when it's really a problem of "people control."

I am comforted by the fact that no laws will ever stop deranged people from doing horribly deranged things.

I'm "comforted," (1) because my job and the jobs of most of the people I care about depend on that and (2) I'm also comforted that in accepting and acknowledging that, I accept responsibility for being always as ready as I possibly can be to protect myelf.

The police are not there to STOP crimes.

The police are there to "clean up the mess." They come AFTER the event to determine what heppened and bring in those suspected of committing various criminal offenses.

WE (you and me and everyone else) are our first, and often ONLY line of defense.

I know, it's a scary thought, but when I think back about the LIRR rampage I often think, "It's a shame that one of more of those poor folks didn't arm themselves before making that trip."

Even a single off-duty cop could've fragged that maniac and saved a bunch of lives...and NY the cost of that trial.

Not only is the respectful period over, but who was it who talked about how it was "liberals" who lurve lurve lurve celebrities and celebrities in politics? Wouldn't be anyone who is full of something, would it?

Yeah, probably.

As much as I hate to agree with JMK, he is 100% right.

We don't need gun control, we need criminal control. The best way to control criminals is to shoot them.

I hate guns. I hate the reason why we 'need' them.I hate the fierce protection mode 'we' the good people, fiercely defend the right to gun ownership because of 'them'.

But I sure would wish for one when faced with a stranger aiming one at me in my bedroom at 3am.

But I don't want one. I would prefer a knife wedged under my mattress just incase. For my own safety.
It only takes a second of insanity from a 'sane' person to make a mockery of the right to own a gun.

There are many good and 'sane' people in jail because of a second of insanity and we all have been 'there'...admit it.

But I still will defend the good people of America to own a gun and defend their rights and their families...it's still a really, really complex matter for me.

I think I am sane...but I still would not want to own one.

BMJ-
You want to know what laws would have prevented the Virginia Tech shooting? Simple, non-citizens should not be allowed to own or buy guns. The shooter was an immigrant who hadn't adapted to the stresses of a country he had been in for almost a decade and a half. Besides, the second ammenment applies to US citizens not foriegners so we aren't violating their rights. Considering they choose to come here they should go home if for some reason they feel unsafe enough to want to be armed. Possesion of firearms in the US by a non-citizen should be grounds for immediate deportation.

"BMJ-
You want to know what laws would have prevented the Virginia Tech shooting? Simple, non-citizens should not be allowed to own or buy guns. The shooter was an immigrant who hadn't adapted to the stresses of a country he had been in for almost a decade and a half. Besides, the second ammenment applies to US citizens not foriegners so we aren't violating their rights. Considering they choose to come here they should go home if for some reason they feel unsafe enough to want to be armed. Possesion of firearms in the US by a non-citizen should be grounds for immediate deportation."

-My, the writer who said "Gun Control is Racist" sure knew what he was talking about, judging by this post. That's just wonderful! So supposing that a Foreign National is married to a US Soldier or Sailor or Airman or Marine and there's a gun in the residence for protection while the service member's away, then should the spouse be deported?