Not sure why we can't all agree that it is too easy to get a gun
That people have a right to have them - if they pass certain tests - and a wait period
Have you tried to buy a gun lately? It isn't all that easy!
Americans have a right (well, everyone does, just most places won't allow it) to get a gun, guaranteed by the Constitution; no one has a right guaranteed by the Constitution to get a DVD. But it is a LOT harder to get a gun than a DVD, in spite of those words "shall not be infringed".
You like waiting periods, huh? I congratulate you on being in favor of ex-boyfriends being able to enter the houses of former girlfriends and the girlfriends aren't allowed to buy the one item that could save their lives.
Tell me, if you want to start a newspaper, do you have to pass a test, and wait a period?
If you want to go to church, do you have to pass a test, and wait a period?
That semi automatics in the hands of most anyone - is a problem
There's ignorance speaking. There are millions of semi-automatics in the U.S. of A., and hardly any of those are ever used in a crime, or in any threatening way. Semi-automatics are no different than any other currently, commonly lawful weapon: you pull the trigger once, you get one shot; to shoot again, you pull the trigger again.
The only people I've ever known of who I don't like having semi-autos are cops, because its cops I hear about and talk to people who were there about, cops who fire all ten rounds in their weapon into a boy who was scared and wouldn't stop screaming.
The right to bear arms - has to be controlled no?
Rights are NOT to be controlled; they're
rights.
"Rights must be controlled" is a nice summation of the philosophy that ran the late, failed Soviet Union. Their Constitution guaranteed freedom of religion -- but that right had to be controlled, no? I guaranteed freedom of the press, but that right had to be controlled, no? It guaranteed freedom for (unwarranted) search and seizure, but that right had to be controlled, no? It guaranteed the right to vote -- but that right, too, had to be controlled!
Control -- by the government -- is precisely the reason there is a guarantee of the right to keep and bear arms: so that when government control gets out of line, it can be stopped.
do we want people like Cho being so able to get a gun?
I would rather that Cho and others like him be able to get a gun than that we all have to be what Pelosi and htose like her want: that we all be sheep.
But I would more rather that the government stop making new rules for about twenty years and clean up what we have, because from listening to the schools officials and doctors interviewed on the matter, it was government rules that prevented them from restraining the killer. In a free country, a concerned counselor could have consulted with a colleague, and then with a school official, and sent out a notice to local gun shops, "Don't sell this guy a weapon." Of course in a free country, other students would have been armed and stopped him before the death count passed five.
Chance, you and other keep missing something: a high school shop building has everything needed to build a gun. The local machine shop could build a gun. I could sit down and order from Sears on-line everything I need to build a gun. Heck, if I'm not stuck on using gunpowder, I could drive over to Fred Meyer right now and buy what I need to build a gun!
For that matter, I could go out into the garage, grab a few items, and head into the basement to build a crossbow. I could build a slingshot and a homemade grenade. I could fashion a blowgun accurate to fifty yards. With a quick trip to first an auto parts store, and then a grocery store with a garden section, I could whip up some cannisters with which I could kill a few hundred people, horribly, in just minutes -- anyone who sits down and thinks about their college chemistry education could.
Which means that anyone determined to kill people, and anyone who doesn't care about the law, can get a weapon. The technology is, as they say, out of the bag.
Which is, again, part of why the Constitution guarantees the inherent right to keep and bear arms: the evil individuals of the world will get what they want to do their evil deeds, and the best defense of the good is to, as my handgun safety course emphasized, "stop the threat" -- and that means a gun.
