The Four Color Media Monitor

Funny coming from a guy who wrote this: http://nerditis.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/superiorspiderman_5_middle2-019.jpg

Only the most narrow minded would label gun control as a strictly leftist political point of view. In light of all the campus killings lately, let's continue to bury our collective heads in the sand because our "right" to bear arms is parmount to all other rights. How about my right to send my kid to school without the fear that some a--hole with a gun won't try to solve his problems by taking out as many people as he can before being brought down. Gun control may not be the solution, but its a damn good start. Lets look at other countries that aren't so gun happy to see how their citizenry fare.

Nobody's saying that guns should be brought to schools. Owning a gun is a personal responsibility and should be treated as such. Mental health is the real problem here, but the left hides from it and blames the gun. Three of the Santa Barbara murders were committed with knives. Does that mean we should ban knives now? Or should we help and if necessary contain those who may be harmful to others?

LT: There are many options available other than gun control, whatever you precisely mean by that. Enforcing existing laws (which Joe Biden said we can't adequately do, BTW) and making them stronger so that virtually ANY crime committed with a gun gets a big prison term is a good start, too.

We already have about 20,000 federal, state, and local gun control laws in the US. The Gun Control Act of 1968 (a federal law, so it applies in all 50 states) prohibits gun ownership by convicted criminals, dangerously mentally ill people, people who are legally insane or incompetent, substance abusers, and anyone under 18.

So, when people talk about a need for increased gun control, they really mean preventing rational, peaceable, sane adults from owning guns (or from owning certain types of guns, like "assault weapons"). But rational, peaceable citizens are not the ones going on shooting sprees.

Criminals don't obey gun control laws (or laws in general), and the people who do obey them are honest citizens who don't commit crimes anyway. Without voluntary compliance, the only option is enforcement. That is, punish violators. But the anti-gun activists are usually bleeding heart liberals who are opposed to punishing criminals, so they keep passing more gun control laws, apparently hoping to come up with one that sociopaths and psychotics will voluntarily obey.

"A damn good start" would be to take the revolving doors out of the legal system and the mental health care system. Criminals and psychotics should not be wandering around loose, and the whole country should not have to be turned into a gigantic padded room to accommodate them.

Yes, "gun control" is a strictly leftist point of view. You can't be a statist and a (US) conservative.

Unless, of course, by "gun control," you mean not pointing a gun at anything you don't want destroyed. Where I grew up, we called that "common sense," though.