While I agree with your exposition that the NRA's pulling the wool over legitimate gun owners crosshairs, the illegal possession of guns remains staggering. There is a plethora of guns for sale on the street; people who can't them legally will rob or kill to possess one. There is also easily obtainable contraband flowing back and forth across our porous borders. When there is a will is there is a will. Congress won't act unless the public outcry for more stringent gun control legislation threatens to unseat them in an election. I mean, we've had more than our fair share of momentous, indeed historic, killing sprees to galvanize public attention. Each time the media, the victims' families and law enforcement say the same old thing. Each time nothing's done to amend the legislation. The loopholes remain. These tragedies have become a continuum. And so has our collective impotence to demand change.

Brilliantly said! I have been very shaken by these murders; indeed, one occurred in my county, the other in a couple counties away. These murders happen over and over and nothing is ever done. Will things change under Obama? Sadly, I doubt it.

Here, here! These tragedies will continue until we ALL take responsibility for putting weapons in the hands of those who shouldn't have them. The ban on assault weapons has to be reinstated or we have to just accept these mass murders as commonplace... sadly, given the regularity with which they are occurring, we already do.

The guilty--Are those who continue to spread propaganda about "lax" gun laws and the easy availability of firearms to criminals and the mentally deficient. Those are lies..Additional laws or firearms restrictions would not have prevented any of those incidents.

The guilty--are those who have such a need to spread their agenda; that they will force the disarming and loss of protection of those most in need of it--law abiding citizens.

The guilty..are the those who prefer to spread fear and panic to get their citizen disarmanent agenda across.

The guilty.. are those who believe the propaganderists and allow themselves to be victimized..

The guilty..is the media who publicize the propaganderists but not the numerous occurences when legally armed citizens have prevented violence and loss of life...

The guilty...are those who believe their agenda is working...It isn't, simply because most Americans aren't as gullible as they would wish.

Mr Evans.
To find a solution to a problem you have to find the route cause. You can't treat symptoms or mere contributing factors alone.

GUILTY: A society who has lost its respect for the value of life. A nation where we are told it's a woman's choice whether or not a defenseless baby lives or dies, a nation where a suicide is seen as mercy killing for the sick; and a nation who defines suicide bombers as freedom fighters is a nation with no real sense of value of human life.

marinepro - you really are a joke. it's all a big conspiracy eh? do you deny the unregulated sale of firearms at "gun shows" occuring in state like VA?

Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar showed you don't need guns to kill people. Lovelle Mixon Illegally had his guns as did Poplawski. So where there were gun laws, the people in question simply went around them. Perhaps Mr. Evans you should bother to research your points before pathetically trying to make them. The fact you shose to post a picture of people handling the XM-8, a gun that is not in production as it was vying to replace the M-16 in US military use shows you quite removed from the topic.

The Guilty: Mr. Evans who uses a straw man argument to try and curtail the constitutional rights of American citizens.

A vast majority of gun crimes are committed by people who can't or don't legally own guns, they are already breaking the law making guns even more illegal won't persuade them to not shoot someone.

All we need to do is look at the UK. Guns are illegal there, yet there has been little to no decrease in gun related crimes and violent crimes. The solution, now they want to ban knives. People are going to commit crimes with whatever weapon they can get.

Making guns illegal only insures that when a burglar breaks into your home he is going to be the one with the gun, not you.

I totally agree. These criminals would have never been able to get guns had we had tougher gun laws. Just as a drug abuser can't get cocaine and meth and such because those things are legal...wait a minute. You mean bad people will always find a way to get the tools they need to act out their nefarious plots?

If the NRA was to blame and gun laws were to blame- we'd have a killing every second of every day with these guns. However, these killings tend to be rare, and no amount of propaganda on how NRA members are somehow accomplices to murder will change that.

The author here is an accomplice in the plot to turn "journalism" into garbage like this.

I am most interested in the source of Mr. Evansinside information into the investigations of all of these incidents. He apparently knows which weapons were used and has already tranced their origins. As he can claim that "flea market and state sales" are some how "guilty". I have not seen any reports as to the Pittsburgh or Binghamton shooting as to the source of the guns used.

Like wise maybe Mr. Evans you could explain to me how reauthorization of the Assault Weapons ban would have, prevented any of these tragedies. Or how the drop in the use of "automatic weapons" bears any relevance to these shootings. "... despite a 2004 U.S. Department of Justice study finding that the share of gun crimes involving automatic weapons dropped by 17%, to 72%. "

Either you are writing on a topic you are extremely ignorant about or you are purposely attempting to mislead your readers in an attempt to support a flawed argument. The terms "automatic" and "semi automatic" are not interchangeable. The assault weapons law signed by President Clinton in 1994 did nothing to address "automatic" weapons as they had been ban many years before and are still prohibited today. Additionally in none of the reports that I have read have I seen mention of the use of automatic weapons.

I don't know what is more upsetting about this article Mr. Evans use of these tragedies to advance is agenda or dishonesty in making the argument.

One of the greatest quotes bout this issue is actually from one of the writers of the web comic "Penny Arcade". He said the media not discussing the guns or gun control after every one of these incidents was the equivalent of a rash of people suddenly taking up farming, while nobody talked about the pitchforks and hoes they were using to do it.

The real truth is the Republicans encourage it. They encourage the militias, the gun nuts, and the conspiracy theorists. Anything to disrupt a Democratic administration. I can find ten speeches by McCain and various others threatening the end of gun rights if Obama was elected. Why is that?

The comment about guns being illegal in other countries is of course false. There are less fatal crimes and gun crimes in the U.K.

There are then more stabbing crimes, but fewer of those are fatal. I am fine with guns. But why is easier to get and assault rifle than a bank loan? Hunting rifles, shotguns, pistols, these are fine. What type of deer are you taking down with an AK47?

Wow,
Blame honest people for the actions of others? I see.

The GUILTY are those that perpetrate the attacks, no one else. The last time I checked, we didn't have psychic abilities to peer into the hearts of men.

It isn't the guy at the gun show who sells or buys a gun that's the problem. It isn't a background check that makes the difference.

There are plenty of laws that state rules for buying or selling firearms. It isn't the people who abide by those rules that cause the problem.

It is the person who sells it to known criminals. It is the felon who is prohibited from owning a weapon that gets one. It is the felons who bring them from across the border and sell them to felons.

So quit blaming honest citizens and merchants. Quit trying to make the honest suffer because of a few sensational bad guys. And quit trying to excuse the behavior of the bad guys.

Instead, work to change the culture that is immune to violence and its causes. The culture, when it sees someone beheaded in a movie, reaches for more popcorn instead of barfing in disgust. The culture that elevates and venerates violence instead of peace.

I don't plan to hunt with an AK-47. I enjoy shooting it at the range. It is my hobby.

The 2nd Amendment isn't about hunting. It is about the right to own "arms."

And yeah, I could hunt with an AK-47. Or a rock. They are inexpensive (oh my!), easy to use and maintain and relatively cheap to shoot.

You can't own a firearm without going through a lot of hoops in Mexico. But everyone there does. Including fully auto, not just semi-auto, weapons. All that has happened is that a bunch of honest Mexican citizens are now considered "criminals" by their government.

Fix the culture, fix the problem.Instead of trying to apply first aid by bandaid laws, work for a cure to the culture that lauds violence.

In reference to the Virginia Tech student. I like how gun dealers are supposed to do mental health checks on potential gun buyers. Great news folks! Your medical records are open to the public because this author wants them to be. BTW nobody more familiar with this person's mental behavior did a thing to take him off the street but the gun dealer is suppose to police him? What exact set of laws would we even be talking about that makes this possible for gun dealers to do what you are suggesting?

The Guilty are rapscallions such as James Madison, who wrote into the Constitution the loathsome words:

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

The Guilty are charlatans posing as legal scholars, such as this fellow Joseph Story, who in his Commentaries on the Costitution (1890 - 91) wrote:

"The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them."

(And, as far as literary method is concerned, The Guilty is Harold Evans, who has succeeded in writing a rant, not a argument. A rant is a public venting designed to demonstrate the righteousness of the writer and those who already agree with him, but not designed to convince.)

By the way- is there any evidence any of these killers obtained their guns legally?

They're not sure how Mixon got his guns, from all the reports I can find. We can assume as a felon who was just paroled, he probably got his illegally, which means no ban would stop him.
The reports say Robert Stewart used a "deer gun." Devan Kalathat used 2 .45 pistols which I don't believe would be covered in the assault ban. McLendon used what was described as an automatic rifle, but it seems that wasn't covered in the ban either.

The Dept of Justice stats show assault weapons being used in 2-8% of crimes (read- rarely) BEFORE the ban...so, it's fairly obvious that the ban wouldn't have stopped any of the crimes listed above. Not only because most of the weapons used weren't covered in the ban, but also because the banned weapons were hardly used in crimes to begin with.

I'm wondering how the NRA or "law abiding" citizens are at all accomplices here?

The only time I will take these arguments seriously is if they have the balls to not "Grandfather" already owned weapons. If you think that your policies are so righteous then assault rifles shouldn't be in ANYBODY's hands.

I don't think gun grabbing politicos have the nuts to try that. What message does that send to tell people that you can't get "dangerous" weapons from now on, but those in circulation are A-OK?

If they are bad then they are all bad, but I think what is really going on is that politicians and agenda pushers just want to look like they are looking out for people. What is more likely is that they are trying to score points for......you guessed it, re-election.

Part of me is tempted to get an assault rifle before somebody tries to tell me it isn't my right anymore. The gaping hole in the rights argument is that the person who already owns the scary gun has more rights than me because I didn't buy one in time. That doesn't sound like equal protection to me.

Rights are rights. If I am a law abiding citizen then my rights are just as valid as anybody elses. If you are going to take them away, take them all away, but good luck finding volunteeers with that.

Let's add to the list of the guilty, shall we?

Let's add to the list all the mom and pop stores that sell packs of cigarettes, knowing that their profitable act will be instrumental in destroying the health of millions. Let's add all the brewers of the infinite brands of alcoholic drinks that will be directly involved in the tens of thousands of deaths on our nation's highway due to the selfish acts of drunken drivers. And let's add the millions of innocent children who are murder each year through the heinous act of abortion.And how about gambling, a game that destroys the soundness of thousands of families every year? Pornography causes many of the addicted to rape and to beat upon countless women.

So why aren't these vices in the crosshair of social justice and protection of the liberal-minded? Shouldn't they, along with guns, be band as well, in light of their destructive nature? If not-WHY NOT?

@ jaguar "uses a straw man argument to try and curtail the constitutional rights of American citizens."

What about my constitutional right to go to work and send my kids to school without the fear that some nut job was able to get his hands on an automatic weapon or high-powered rifle?

@thebluesite, "these killings tend to be rare.." really? 43 killings in 26 days... I'm sure your definition of rare would be different if it was one of your loved ones who was killed during an ordinary day at work. What about the constitutional rights of the people who have been killed in these rampages? What happened to their right to life, to their pursuit of happiness? No one talks about their rights...

No one needs an automatic weapon or a high-powered rifle for protection. And if you need one for hunting then you're certainly not a good shot. End of story.

Mr. Evans, with all due respect, I have purchased a firearm at a gun show in Virginia and had to go through the same federal background check you'd go through at a firearms dealer shop.

Mr. Evans clearly has an anti-gun agenda which is on display. He also failed to recognize the blatant fact that the vast majority of these gun crimes occur in "Gun Free Zones," which means that only criminals can carry guns in them.

When we create "Gun Free Zones" we create areas in which criminals and psychos know no law-abiding people will be armed to stop them. Virginia Tech is a classic example, so is the Binghamton Civic Center.

In fact, New York State has some of the absolute toughest gun laws in the nation. I know, I used to live there and tried to file for a pistol permit. It takes over a year and there are numerous hoops to go through. Plus, New York State basically does not grant carry permits for any reason.

Therefore, how does this happen in a state like New York where they have some of the tightest gun control laws in the nation? Perhaps because, if you notice, these mostly occur in "Gun Free Zones" where law abiding people are disarmed.

Mr. Evans, do you research on "Gun Free Zones" before you chastise me as an NRA member.

Plus, your statement about Mexico getting guns from us is bunk. Read once and a while and you'll see that maybe 17% of guns in Mexico are from the United States, not 90%.

In 2007-2008, according to ATF Special Agent William Newell, Mexico submitted 11,000 guns to the ATF for tracing. Close to 6,000 were successfully traced - and of those, 90 percent - 5,114 to be exact, according to testimony in Congress by William Hoover - were found to have come from the U.S.

But in those same two years, according to the Mexican government, 29,000 guns were recovered at crime scenes.

In other words, 68 percent of the guns that were recovered were never submitted for tracing. And when you weed out the roughly 6,000 guns that could not be traced from the remaining 32 percent, it means 83 percent of the guns found at crime scenes in Mexico could not be traced to the U.S.

Will Mr. Evans respond? I doubt it.

The ten-year ban on assault weapons was signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1994 but was allowed to lapse in the Bush presidency, despite a 2004 U.S. Department of Justice study finding that the share of gun crimes involving automatic weapons dropped by 17%, to 72%.

That's funny; the Clinton ban didn't include automatic weapons. They have ALWAYS been illegal. Still are.

Guns are illegal in European countries (other than for hunting). Because of this they are very hard to get. Ordinary citizens don't own them and so criminals have nobody to steal them from. Gun crime is virtually inexistant. When criminals plan their activities "getting a gun" is rarely on their list, just because it is something that just doesn't pop up in the minds of people who normally live without it. Yes, stabbings happen, but in general, murder rates are still very low. Nobody even feels the need to have a gun "for their own protection".

Personally, I wouldn't feel safe walking around knowing that everybody around me might potentially have a lethal weapon in their pocket. Why is it that in the U.S. people cling onto their love of guns and feed off of the illusion that they are safer because they have one?
And the Second Ammendment- isn't it a bit outdated? Get rid of it. Learn to ADAPT to the current situation!

What law is it that you people think would prevent these madmen from committing their heinous crimes without interfering with my right to keep and bear arms? I don't mind background checks for purchases except for two reasons; 1) The do not stop criminals and other crazies from getting guns. They only keep them from buying them legally. 2) Anti-gun politicians use background check fees to make it much more expensive for me to exercise my 2nd amendment rights. Here in the Peoples Republik of Kalifornia the government has added a ton of paperwork and nearly $80 to the cost of a single purchase.

There are more than 20,000 gun laws on the books through out the nation. Does anyone really believe one more would stop these maniacs? Do you folks not realize that only those of us who are not inclined to commit these crimes will obey the law!

Have any of you anti-gun nuts bothered to notice that all of these mass murders take place in GUN FREE ZONES, like schools, nursing homes, etc.

BTW I have owned guns ever since I was 15 years old and I am a life member of the NRA. The NRA has never "pulled the wool over my eyes." They are the foremost organization in the world defending LEGITIMATE, SAFE gun ownership and shooting sports.

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