I'm totally behind taking away all the guns. My motto for the last two years has been "Disarm Law Enforcement." ALL the guns. No cop is going into an iffy neighborhood umarmed without some training and dedication to conflict negotiation, some compassion, and common sense. Give a cop a gun and you take all of that away. Hell, give *anybody* a gun and you take all that away.

All the stuff my kid was telling me his friends were telling him ended up being confirmed by news reports. No one was surprised because he was expelled for bringing knives to school. He bragged about his weapons and killing animals all the time. EVERYBODY KNEW this kid was going to end up being a mass murderer and yet he had guns and did it.

And I promise you some of those parents yesterday were all about the "2nd Amendment" and today they aren't. These "gun rights" are absolute bullshit.

Yes, I weep for the families and loved ones, and I weep for all of us.

ION, DH came home from his HS basketball game last night covered in pepper spray because he was restraining a fight participant and got inadvertently sprayed. Teen basketball players fighting, hell no, adults from the stands!!!! I forgot to ask him if they won his game.

The world has gone mad.

eta: he won his game - the men fighting were two huge loudmouths from another game altogether

Oh, great, Trump's going to "address the nation" at 11AM Eastern. He'll either be a complete asshole or he'll manage to read shit off a teleprompter and people will call him "presidential."

No way I am listening to that. My family is safe and yet this tragedy manages to affect my life in odd ways. Ripple effect.

My stove top shorted out due to an unfortunate soy sauce spill and the owner of the appliance place called DH to tell him they were closed today because they have a couple employees with kids at that HS and they are just closing so they can be with family rather than at work. Also, the whole regional and state basketball playoffs and so forth are on hold until they figure when they can reschedule because Broward is a major county. The school isn't in contention, but the whole county has postponed the games.

It's a mess. And it is every day that tragedy strikes in this country in large part because of our insane gun culture.

I wish there were a snowball's chance in hell of a Constitutional Amendment to modify the 2nd and get most combat-usable firearms out of public hands, but it's not going to happen in any of our lifetimes. (I do still support hunting, but no sane person is hunting with an automatic assault rifle.)

Oh, man, Laura. And yet, there's no way this could have been prevented, I'm sure we will hear many times.

Laura- it makes me furious reading your posts and then hearing the family he was living with these last 3 months make statements about how they are shocked and had no idea. He had to have these guns with him. They had to know he was kicked out for bringing knives.

It's my last day as an hourly employee. Nine more work days in this job. So weird. Therapy this afternoon should be good.

Is it just me or does it seem like Dems are really out of touch on gun issues? It seems like they talk a lot about hunting and hunters and gun rights people hardly ever talk about gun control in relation to hunting. To me it makes it sound like Dems don't get it.

Gun rights aren't about hunting, or at least hunting is a tiny sliver. Self-defense I think is larger piece, but I think the big thing is identity.

I don't listen to the radio a lot right now, but there used to be radio ads for a large local gunshop called 'Frontier Justice'. At the end of every ad they would invite people to come to their store and 'take a stand for family, faith, and freedom.' How does buying a gun relate to family and faith? It only really makes sense in terms of identity.

People talk about see something say something, but everyone knew the kid was a time bomb. He legally owned the assault rifle and all the social media scary shit photos and talk wasn't illegal. He was expelled from school for his violence, yet he was able to walk into the school with smoke bombs, a gas mask, and assault rifle.

Everything in his history screamed this guy should not own weaponry, and yet not illegal.

I have to once again steadfastly avoid gun loving family and friends because I am the one that can't be civil.