Thoughts and Prayers Break Out in Birmingham, Alabama

@windinhishair My point exactly.

For them, it is only sacred until it gets here.

@SomeMichGuy Republican responsibility for a fetus stops at birth. After that, they are on their own and Republicans have no further responsibility whatsoever. In fact, they blame the child and their parents for their own poverty and for mooching off others.

@Northwest Those " switches" are already illegal and have been illegal for years! So, if another law is passed making them illegal, that will somehow help?

@fanuc2013
Do you have canned responses that you post regardless of comment? Where am I discussing laws? Switches are considered illegal by the ATF.

@Badfeeder Why do you think Americans are the problem? Are Americans far more mentally ill than any other nation on earth? Or do you think the ready access to weapons specifically designed to kill large numbers of people quickly and efficiently contributes?

@windinhishair GREAT QUESTION. I am from the Northeast so I have a weird sense of America overall. I think that america is the greatest, in the sense of the boilerplate-mixing-it-all-together way. We have a wild spectrum of life here. 1st world country, check out the boonies, absolute third world country, anyhow i digress. we are not more wild or sane or whatnot, but we do have way too much access to weapons that can be obtained and used as you say for mass murder. we also have an honesty problem. honesty doesn't pay and no one is truly honest with themselves.

@Badfeeder Not to mention that as a nation, we have a strong gun culture. One that has metastacized in the past couple of generations into a "gun fetish" culture, where gun ownership has become almost a religion and overrides everything else. I don't know how you reign that in now that it has occurred. Your honesty hypothesis is interesting. I think you may be on to something there.

@kodiac The Constitution doesn't guarantee you the right to own the weapon of your choice. You should read it sometime. You should read the Supreme Court decisions on guns too. Start with District of Columbia v. Heller. Scalia's majority opinion would probably surprise you and you would call it woke.

@SW-User You can defend yourself without an assault weapon. You don't require heavy artillery, RPGs, assault vehicles, bunker bombs, or tanks, either. You don't have a natural right to own whatever weapons you desire, nor to use them anywhere you wish at any time. You really need to read the Supreme Court case District of Columbia v. Heller that was decided in 2008. In particular, read the majority decision written by Justice Scalia where he discusses limits on private gun ownership.

Hunters do not need assault rifles. There is no game that requires an assault weapon to hunt. An assault weapon may make it easier to blast an animal into tiny bits or obliterate it, but prior to assault weapons, people did just fine. People enjoying shooting them is not a justification for their continued use.

Would I own a gun if I lived in the middle of nowhere? If I had a farm? The answer is no. I live in a rural area and have a small farm on a few acres. I can get by just fine without a weapon. I occasionally have animal issues with deer, woodchucks, skunks, etc. It might be easier to blow the woodchucks and skunks into oblivion with an assault weapon, but I can live trap them just fine and move them elsewhere when they become a nuisance. I've trapped two skunks and about a dozen woodchucks over the years and moved them successfully.

@windinhishair Define "assault weapon"!

@fanuc2013 I'll let the experts define it in the legislation. But a weapon capable of firing dozens of shots in rapid fire succession and is designed specifically to kill people quickly and efficiently has no place in the hands of an individual not engaged in military action. Just because you COULD use it to kill a hog and blow it to smithereens doesn't mean that you should.

@windinhishair it’s so crazy to me. I have no reason to buy one and don’t feel like I need one being in public.

@iamonfire696 I don't own a gun and I have no need for one. I'm not petrified to go out in daylight to the point I need to carry one.

@windinhishair I am happy you don’t feel you need one