I'd really like to see a serious, logical discussion about

[Demo_Chris]

16. Serious? Okay, since you ask...

Serious follows:

Whether we want gun control or not, this incident, nor the next, nor the next, nor the next, going on forever, are NOT going to result in any kind of meaningful anti-gun legislation. We can get angry about it, we can get all fired up listening to passionate speeches from people who agree with our positions, but nothing is going to change until the hundreds of millions of gun owners accept that THEIR weapon is a bad thing and THEY voluntarily remove it from their lives.

Until then, here's more of that serious you wanted:

There are hundreds-of-thousands or even millions of rabid PASSIONATE gun owners who believe that their toys are all that stand between tyranny and freedom. There is no sense debating this here, the point is that they believe it. Even tragedies like mass shootings are seen as acceptable losses, blood watering the tree of liberty if you will. They watch their Fox and they listen to their radio, they talk to other gun owners and they visit their radical right websites, and they believe that the "black Marxist Socialist Nazi Muslim Kenyan" wants to take their guns and destroy America. Or something like that. The how and why details are fuzzy and they don't matter even to the believers, because this is what they have spent their entire gun-collecting lives waiting for. In their minds they are PATRIOTS, they are the GREAT AMERICANS, they are American HEROES--

And they can't wait for the opportunity to open fire.

Keep in mind, they are in full freak out mode. The economy is a disaster and their TV and radio say that it's all liberal's fault. Their political party is imploding (too liberal), their country is changing (F'ing liberals), their God's are under attack (godless liberals!), there are gays in the military and getting married (god dammed liberals!), there's a black guy -- A BLACK GUY -- in the White House and they think he might be a Muslim. Remember, they really believe this nonsense. If they were unhinged under Clinton (and they were) they are batshit crazy on crack right now.

Telling them to surrender their weapons, or worse attempting to collect them, is the signal they have been waiting for. That's what Fox and Rush and the NRA have been warning them about for years. Right now, as I type this at the crack of dawn, there are hundreds of these nutcases sitting in their dark living rooms, lovingly oiling their metal children and thinking about what they will do and who they will kill first. They have waited their whole lives for the chance to strike a blow for liberty (read: kill people) and demonstrate how awesome they and their guns are.

In short:

Dismantling this mess is like disarming a bomb. You don't go in there with a chainsaw. You have to move slowly and carefully and defuse it without setting it off. My opinion is that the thing to do at this time is to back away from these guy's gun cabinets, let the crazies keep their weapons until they can safely be disarmed, and focus our attention on addressing the other side of this problem: mental health.

NOTE/EDIT: In the above post I am NOT talking about regular decent sane law-abiding gun owners. There are as many great reasons to enjoy guns as their are people who own them, and I mean no disrespect to gun owners in general, and if any offense was taken please accept my apologies.

Anyway, that's all just my opinion. If you read all that, THANKS!