I actually agree that society's attitude toward mental illness contributed to the Sandy Hook massacre. The perpetrator's mother was trying to have him committed, wasn't she?

The statement "We should enforce the gun laws we have" is valid. But it begs the question, why aren't we doing that already? Is anyone standing in the way?

I love how Mr. Stewart can make his point by paying someone a compliment as readily as by insulting someone, and both in such a delightful manner. "Fast-fingers Graham" indeed!

Maybe we should get all K-12 kids a routine psych eval, the same as we do for hearing and vision. Then everyone would have a record and maybe the stigma of mental health treatment would abet.

I wish we could take away the guns of that last guy who is yelling in the interview. He is obviously unhinged.

@1

Well the NRA is standing in the way of a vote on Obama's nominee for the head of the ATF. Kind hard for them to do their job with nobody in charge. They're having an angry tantrum about this screwed up sting operation in Mexico, so they are preventing law enforcement from going out and enforcing gun laws in the US.

The gun lobby spends every day attacking the enforcement actions of the ATF another agencies. They introduce laws every year to hobble enforcement. Like making it harder to revoke the license of gun dealers caught breaking the rules. Or making it harder to conduct background checks. Or easier to get your name taken off the list if your a crook or a crazy person. The list is long: they're busy.

It's this dishonesty from the gun nuts that leads to them being mocked instead of treated with respect. If they really supported the things they claim to support, they don't show it. They say the support existing law, but they do everything they can to circumvent and weaken existing law. Then lie and lie and lie about it.

The Brady Campaign calls the NRA "The Criminal's Best Friend". Sad but true.

Agreed with @1, the Lindsay Graham segment was especially beautiful...is there anyone left who doesn't know that he's gay, at this point?

@6

A better point would have been that Jared Loughner couldn't be stopped -- even by an armed citizen -- until he had to reload.

Lindsey Graham has every right to be himself and sound like a swish if he wants. Trying to act like a manly man is what drives these losers to want big bad guns in the first place.

@4: that's Alex Jones. he is, guess what, a talk show host. from Tejas.

Stewart didn't say anything that wasn't been said on Slog multiple times after each massacre last year.

I don't understand his statement: "Technology has democratized carnage." Isn't the opposite true? It used to be that the citizens had muskets and the government had muskets: now the citizens have assault rifles and the government has nukes.... which of course makes the gun nut fantasy that they're going to defend themselves when Big Brother comes so ridiculous.

Hi Guys!

I'm here so you can have someone to launch insults out while you circle jerk about how your feelings mean more than my rights.

@9
Look at Iraq and Afghanistan.

@9
Let's look at your scenario.

Would it be wrong for a people to use firearms against a government that would use Nukes on it's own citizens?

Should a system of belief be right simply because it has a monopoly on force?

@ 2 Aspergers and Autism are both Pervasive Developmental Disorders(PDD) so although different, they fall under the same heading.

@10 - That would be our "feeling" that we'd rather not have tens of thousands of people die every year to protect your "right" to have your other right be completely unregulated? Is that it? Because I don't want to take away your right to own your stupid ass guns, but I do want it to be carefully regulated to produce the least direct harm to innocents, just like every other right.

Just meaning one shrink might diagnose PDD unspecified, another Aspergers when looking at the same patient

I don't think that Alex Jones cat is going to be around much longer. His diet of pork belly vitriol should take him out soon enough.

@12 "Would it be wrong for a people to use firearms against a government that would use Nukes on it's own citizens?"

I don't know about wrong. Just stupid.

I can tell you this. If my government was willing to use nukes on 'we the people' the last thing I would want is a bunch of yayhoo, Dirty Harry / Rambo wannabes shooting off their popguns and instigating that very action and getting me vaporized along with their gun toting asses.

@14 Please look into the actual numbers before making claims like 10s of thousands.

The CDC doesn't include suicide in homicide by firearm, which drops the number of deaths outside of the top 100 causes in the USA http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/lcod.htm

The FBI data shows voilent crime is down %50 percent from 20 years ago
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/cri…

So called assault weapons *do* account for less than one percent of gun crimes. which is where the silly hammer sound bite comes from.

Connecticut already has some of the strictest gun laws in the nation.

....... yet the answer here and in other places, is a ban on high capacity magazines and "assault weapons" will be the answer.....

What was the question again? Was it what Biden said? "if we save one life its worth it" thats dangerous talk, talk like that gave us the drug war, the patriot act, the TSA and is the voice and lifeblood of the pro life movement.

As far as laws not being used, look locally, the tuba man killer who shot up a bar? he committed multiple gun felonys and was charged with none, whats the point of the laws we have if we don't use them?

but @10 nailed it, this will devolve into a insult circle jerk just like every other thread. Because the true gun fetishists are the anti gun people here, who know nothing about firearms other than what they have been spoon fed by the media. You know who said the most interesting thing about guns? Dan Savage in his book Skipping Towards Gomorrah, go read his chapter on firearms, its valid to this conversation, and its why I suspect he is more quiet than most on this subject.

@9, you miss the point by a hair. It has democratized carnage. I don't think the original statement was meant to be a comparison of individual vs government but rather 2012 individual vs 1700's individual. Yes, government's ability to murder people has gone from 1 at a time (muskets) to millions at a time (nukes) and individuals ability to murder has only gone from 1 at a time (muskets) to dozens at a time (semi-automatic weapons & explosives). So yes, when it comes to the ability to mass murder government is certainly more efficient but individuals ability to mass murder has also dramatically improved since the founding fathers time.

@11,

Yes, let's. How well do firearms work against white phosphorus and drone strikes?

@18: I get the feeling refusing to have the discussion at all only hastens the descent into circle-jerkery, though. Maybe we could ignore the circle-jerkers and try to have an earnest discussion without them?

Here, I'll start: I think legislation controlling ammunition capacity is reasonable. It still allows for hunting or home defense (i.e., gun uses that involve a single target), while making crazy-person massacres more difficult.

Required viewing (from someone who's not a pimp for Viacom and brother of the head of the NYSE):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pla…

@20
"How well do firearms work against white phosphorus and drone strikes?"

Guns are not used against white phosphorus.
In an insurgent situation, the guns would be used against the government troops.
As in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Or are you saying that the current restrictions are not sufficient and that civilians should be allowed access to military guns?

@18

Bring an actual point to the table and then you'd have a discussion. The problem is that gun nuts just keep recycling the same 10 NRA talking points and don't get why everyone just snorts and mocks you.

I don't really care why the CDC would toss out suicides by gun. I do know the NRA has had laws passed tying the CDC's and other agencies hands when it comes to collecting and publishing data on gun deaths.

All I know is that all gun deaths, murders, suicides and accidents. matter to me.

@24

It would require supplying civilians with surface to air missiles, attack helicopters, and some kind of a navy to even begin to have a meaningful shot at a successful insurgency. Probably much more than that.

Even if we made all that legal, the cost would be prohibitive. We'd actually need gun welfare bring our "well regulated militia" up to a standard necessary to present credible threat to our armed forces. We have a military larger than the armed forces of the entire rest of the planet, combined.

None of that is going to happen. Our hedge against tyranny is entirely symbolic. So if it's going to be symbolic, what better symbol of American revolution than the musket? Let the "well regulated militia" have muskets.

All joking aside, banning all semi-automatics wouldn't touch the Second Amendment. And the more politically realistic plan to ban some semi-automatics is entirely constitutional. The only arguments against are that 1) gun lovers dislike having their toys taken away and 2) it's not a perfect magic bullet.

The only political obstacle is the NRA's ability to strong-arm congress. That power is on the wane.

(Go ahead and re-post your legal scholarship on the Second Amendment. We will all laugh.)

@21
"It still allows for hunting or home defense (i.e., gun uses that involve a single target), while making crazy-person massacres more difficult."

You'll need more than just a magazine limit.
Here's a guy with only 6 bullet magazines still managing to fire 18 times in less than 5 seconds.
So with 10 bullet magazines he'd probably be able to fire 30 times in 7 seconds.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QhmSg3Uj…

So how about combining a 10 bullet magazine limit with a requirement (as in California) that the magazine require a separate tool to release it?
That brings the capability of a single gun down to 11 bullets (10 in the magazine and 1 in the chamber).

And in order not to "grandfather in" the existing magazines, make a 3rd requirement that the newly compliant guns have magazine wells that cannot take the existing magazines.

This will NOT stop any shootings.
All it will do is to limit the bullets fired to 11 for each gun the shooter is carrying before he has to take a longer time for reloading.

Some very intelligent thoughts from a very accomplished guy on why the "average Joe" just might need more than 10 rounds:
http://backwoodshome.com/blogs/MassadAyo…

@28
That's exactly correct.
Any restrictions that are put in place will PRIMARILY impact law-abiding people.
Possibly while they are trying to defend themselves and their families.

@28

Here I shortened it for you:

BLACK AND BROWN GANG BANGERS AND ILLEGALS ARE CHARGING RHINOS THEY TAKE 30 ROUNDS TO BRING DOWN. THEY WILL RAPE YOU AND YOUR DAUGHTER BUY AN AR-15.

<concern troll>You know the GOP had the minority vote slip right through their grasp precisely because they couldn't let go of this kind of racist rhetoric. If the NRA is to have any hope they need to jettison the racism and win over some black and Latino supporters, not to mention women, gays and the ever larger urban population of all races.</concern troll>

Just kidding. You go on being as racist as you want to be. Makes passing new gun laws that much easier.

@27: Agreed on all points. I was speaking in more general terms, that measures focused on capacity would be more effective than measures focused on 'power' or 'scary looking.' Over the last few weeks, I've heard a lot of people who don't know anything about guns say things like "we should ban anything more powerful than a hunting rifle," as though we can just compare how many points of damage a particular gun does like in a video game or something. That was, to my mind, the biggest flaw in the 1994 AWB; it covered features that looked scary, without any consideration for what actually made a weapon more dangerous.

@28: I guess I'm taking more of an engineer's approach to this. From that perspective, I'd consider most of those edge cases. Most people don't live along a dangerous national border, and to the best of my knowledge, violent crime has been in decline for decades. I'm not saying we ignore the edge cases, I'm just saying we start with the core scenarios, and then figure out from there how to improve it. I very much prefer regulation over banning; how about you can get the higher-capacity magazines if you meet stricter licensing criteria?

@32: This right here, this is why the people who disagree with you don't want to have this discussion: because you don't want to have a discussion. You want to score points.

@33

The goal isn't to have a lovefest with gun nuts and make everyone feel validated. The goal is fewer dead people. Scoring points is how you win. I'm sorry if it gives you the sadz but the gun lobby didn't have to take the exit to Crazy Town. Could have kept it reasonable, dignified.

Blocking even research on gun violence? Defending the gun show loophole? The list goes on. Crazy is the right word. Shoe fits, wear it.

No, blip, it's perfectly alright for you to live your life with your head in the sand. Just don't think that uniquely qualifies you to talk about things you know nothing about.

@31
"Over the last few weeks, I've heard a lot of people who don't know anything about guns say things like 'we should ban anything more powerful than a hunting rifle,' as though we can just compare how many points of damage a particular gun does like in a video game or something."

Welcome to the discussion!
Don't expect much better in these forums.
I've been through this with people here who do not seem to understand the difference between an AR15 and a 5.56 ball round.
It's like it is a surprise to them when they learn that there are different bullets with different compositions and different characteristics that can be fired from a particular gun.

@12 You obviously have a feeble picture of what totalitarian governments are like. The Nazis, for example, did not sweep through France and the Benelux countries because the people were unarmed. They swept through because they used overwhelming force and demoralizing terror. They'd send the SS into a village, grab the mayor, hold his family hostage, extort cooperation from the local police, order the villagers to hand in all weapons, search a couple houses, find weapons, kill the whole family in public as an example, etc., etc. Would you defy a weapons surrender order if it meant your loved ones would be executed for your defiance? Could you do that?

Besides, the more likely fascist scenario is that we, the white, English-speaking, God-fearing, Christian citizens of the United States, would be rabble-roused to use our weapons to kill all the [insert name of some other, scapegoated section of the population here].

No, the "defense against tyranny" argument is a load of crap-headed fantasy. When "they" kick your door in in the middle of the night, your gun is a guarantee only of your summary execution.

@35: If your opponent refuses to discuss an issue in good faith, there can be no discussion. If you refuse to discuss an issue in good faith, there can be no discussion.

Which of those can you control?

@34: Scoring points is how you keep the discussion polarized. Scoring points is how you exclude reasonable and knowledgeable people from the conversation and end up enacting another useless Scary-Looking Gun Ban. It doesn't give me any "sadz," it gives me "annoyedz" and "aggravatedz" and "not-lending-my-support-to-people-I-otherwise-largely-agree-with-because-they're-being-stupid-alienating-shitheadsz."

@39
Have you ever heard of The French Resistance?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_resi…

Looks like your grasp of history is as feeble as your grasp of civil rights.

But I cant expect much from a sniveling, nanny government boot licking New Yorker.

Now go ask daddy Bloomberg to change your diaper.

@42
I think this is as good an example as you are going to get.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simo_H%C3%A…

@42

The French Resistance lost. France was liberated by a real army.

One reason we know the gun nut insurgency would lose and would get no help from outside is that you hate the whole rest of the world, and they hate you back. They're either too brown or too socialist for you.

If the federal government hinted they were coming after men's penises, then I could understand this level of rage and paranoia from the gun nuts. But the Feds have only indicated they MIGHT look at some restrictions on assault weapons. So, do the male gun nuts who display this level of rage and absurdity feel that their guns are an extension of their dick, hence the need to defend it at all costs? And why not that same sentiment when it comes to women's vaginas and ovaries?

@47

Your type never leaves the chair. Internet warriors.

@10 - You mean insults like this?

Have you ever heard of The French Resistance?

Looks like your grasp of history is as feeble as your grasp of civil rights.

But I cant expect much from a sniveling, nanny government boot licking New Yorker.

Now go ask daddy Bloomberg to change your diaper.

Seems like you were treated far more civilly by [Unpronounceable] when you revealed yourself to have a feeble grasp of history. And in the very post where you accused someone else of it. Classic!

So I guess everyone from New York is pro-nanny state, just like everyone in Eastern Washington is a rube, right?

Burning buildings aren't dangerous! It's just when irresponsible people go into them... Bears are safe! Same with rattlesnakes. Cliffs are completely safe, unless you use them wrong. Cars are completely and utterly safe, they are just objects after all!

The more I think about it, nothing in the world is dangerous! And since human ineptitude really doesn't exist, this world may as well be a big blown up bouncy tent. People don't make mistakes, ever. And if they are trained its even more never than ever. Also, drugs are some of the safest things you can have.

The only danger is you! But you're not dangerous either!

Yes, Michael, they're all dangerous. But do you know what's even more dangerous? A government that's supposed to be "of the people, by the people, and for the people" that decides "the people" should be repressed and treated like four-year-olds.

Gunshot wounds are one of the leading causes of preventable death in the US. We need to balance the right of citizens to defend themselves against the possible threat of criminals/tyranny with the right of citizens to be protected from the threat of people with guns. This is all most reasonable people want. Common-sense solutions that reduce the ridiculous amount of gun violence in our country. But the NRA types oppose virtually any restriction on gun ownership. It's hard to have a serious discussion with such people when they refuse to budge an inch. At some point, the adults in the room need to tell the kids to go outside and play while we figure out the best course of action.

But what if the people are acting like 4 year olds?

But seriously, are sensible gun laws really repressive? That's like saying having to take a driving test to get a license is repressive. I'd rather stay out of these arguments since I've seen they go nowhere for either side, and both sides can never understand the other. It's a shame.

Well, Michael, here's a novel concept: How about we treat the four-year-olds like four-year-olds and everybody else like an adult (instead of a four-year-old)?

There a 100 million responsible gun owners in this country. Every year, about 9-10,000 people (mostly gang-bangers and crazies) prove themselves to be four-year-olds. It makes no sense to treat them all the same.

These gun control discussions fascinate me, as a non-American. It just brings to light how many Americans never seem to have a look outside of their own societies, and the delusions they have about their own liberties. I mean, it's the only plausible explanation for all of these dystopian fantasies on what gun control would mean.

@54 Yes, any and all gun control means you're treating your population like four year olds. That's pretty much a counter-argument for any law, period. Try again.

I love so hard that the only part of my comment you responded to was the satirical comment that preceded "seriously though..."
Just wow.

I think that means you can assume my answer to the second part of your statement is "yes."

Sensible gun laws are repressive. That's why I want to allow people to own bazookas. Think of how less repressed we would all be if we had the freedom to fire stinger missiles, just like the second amendment allows us. Also, why can't I mount a cannon on my car? Sounds like a rule Stalin would have supported.

@42 Being pro-nanny-state would be if I wanted the state to protect me from me. Being anti-anarchy is me wanting the state to protect me and my loved ones from you. There's a difference. If fucked-up, crazy people can't get guns, I don't have to worry about fucked-up, crazy people with guns. Then, I could concentrate on falling cranes, runaway taxis mounting sidewalks, storm surges and rising subway fares.

Criminals and fucked-up crazy people will always be able to get guns. There's no law in the world that will change that.

@60 Gun deaths in NYC are waaaaaaaay down since we enacted the most restrictive gun laws in the nation. Total murder deaths are down, too, from a peak of over 2000 in the early '90s to just over 400/year, all those hammers, knives, and other weapons notwithstanding.

@60

Flooding the streets with easy to obtain guns is why our criminals are so well armed. The NRA is the criminal's best friend.

Notice how few criminals today have machine guns? They used to carry them all the time. Then we restricted access. What does that prove? It proves common sense gun regulation works.

Criminals arm themselves from the arsenals of so-called law abiding gun owners.

@61
I have news for you, every city has had significantly decreased crime since the 1990s, the national violent crime rate is half of what it was. New York's Draconian Laws made little difference.

According to the 2011 FBI uniform crime statistics New York Shity has a murder rate of 6.3 per 100,000.

Seattle has a Murder rate of 3.2 per 100,000, that is almost half of NYC despite will issue concealed carry, and assault rifles.

@65
So the only reasonable response to that would be to make NYC's gun laws the same as Seattle's.

@63: In 1993, the ATF reported that about 1% of firearms in circulation in the USA were assault weapons. Also in 1993, a New York State Statistical Analysis Center study concluded that approximately 16% of murders involved assault weapons.
Now, these numbers aren't conclusive (due in part to the fuzzy definitions of "assault weapon") but it does shed some light on the issue.

There's no such thing as an "assault weapon." There is such a thing as an "assault rifle," but pretty much only the military has them.

Nevertheless, according to the way we're popularly defining "assault rifles" these days, they were involved in exactly 72 deaths last year.

@28 - Do you have any thoughts from anyone not transparently racist (or perhaps simply classist and paranoid; his words strike me as dog whistles for "brown people," but I grant you he might just mean "poor people" or "young people" or "people who listen to that devil music")? As something of an average Joe myself, I categorically reject the notion that the average Joe is beset on all sides by "evil" people (I mistrust anyone who feels confident in identifying such) and "gang bangers" ( a cringeworthy term at best).