Above, the Rock Center flag is at half-staff. President Obama is speaking tonight in Colorado at 7:30 Eastern. We're carrying it live, and then we'll post the video after.
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Will he walk on egg shells. Will he talk about the sorrow or will he speak of those weapons and all that ammo? Will he suggest prayer instead of action against the gun lobby?
I think in this election year we already know the answer. I feel sure that given the right winged claims of the past that Obama was going to take away your guns we know the answer. But does he see himself as played like a violen?
You are dreaming, Paul. Why should Obama take on the gun lobby when we have a Supreme Court that doesn't recognize the first phrase of the second amendment?
It doesn't matter a whit what anybody tries to do about gun control these days because every gun control case brought in front of the Supreme Court is decided in exactly the same way!
"Played like a violin" is a phrase better used to describe fearful extremists, brainwashed by the NRA into believing that anybody wants to take their guns away!
Nobody does! Your dupes being sold garbage for profiteering gun trafficers!
Besides, you could have all the guns you wanted, and, if the Government with its Army wanted to take them from you, it would be a silly event! The Ted Nugents of the World would P their pants and run crying for the nearest safe place! So stop already with this gun insanity!
Nobody should be allowed to carry a gun into a night club or Concert hall, thats insane !
Nobody should be able to buy 100 round clips on the internet!
Its just common sense people!
Not a Government take over of any rights!
We have the right to protect ourselves, that includes an insane proliferation of assault weapons!
Grow up!
Lets talk about the reporters! The last theater I was in, had a bright light that went off if someone opened an exit door! This allowed attendants to see it and close the door!
It allowed patrons who got annoyed at the light to call an attendant who would have seen the purposefully jammed door and unblocked it! Closing the door would have saved lives! The light in the door way would have given everyone a heads up when a heavily armed man came in it!
Where were the safety lights???
Bad reporting!
I believe that what President Obama will stress is " gun safety and responsibility " and not necessarily gun control.
We have tried gun control and it is painfully obvious with the horrific gun violence events of recent years around America that calling it thus has not accomplished much.
But, when you place safety and responsibility at the center of the discussion and make it the purpose of any actions taken, it is less about taking guns away from people and more about making people responsible for the guns they sell and own.
Gun control measures may or may not be the proper response, but safety and responsibility are definitely not. No one clamors for stronger gun laws when someone accidentally shoots himself while cleaning a weapon. No one says we need more tighter gun laws when a man sprays buckshot into his hunting buddy's face b/c he was exercising proper caution. No amount of responsibility and will remedy the the events that are facilitate calls for change in regulating gun ownership.
Gun Makers, Gun Shops and Gun Shows taking more responsibility for the guns they make and sell is actually THE point of gun safety.
Hi Hope,
This incident is a tragedy beyond what people know because everything needed to prevent this already exists without violating the second amendment.
#1: Ammunition Sales Tracking
#2: Ammunition Accountability Act
Item #1 works like the tracking system used to identify methamphetamine labs by tracking all purchasers of cough and cold medication. This lets police know who they should interview.
Item @#2 puts a serial number on each brass shell and bullet, which is stored in a database that pairs each round of ammunition with each purchaser. When a shell casing or round are found in/near a murder victim, the police will know who bought the bullets.
Hey Crack. I agree that the most important thing to focus on in the present is the sorrow and loss that the innocent bystanders and their loved ones are facing.
The responsibility for making, showing and selling guns and the safety of owning them should be something we all focus on in the future, too.
Well now, let's psychoanalyze the situation and avoid debate on the issue of assault rifles and handguns. Let us grieve and pray while more ammo gets shipped direct in thousand round batches of calibers not used in hunting. Yup here we go again.
Talking about weapons right now is so divisive and at this moment I think Obama wants to bring everyone together. I don't even think he'll mention anything about guns. But we shall see!!
That was a beautiful ceremony.
Our legislators need to use this opportunity to restore some sanity to weapon safety.
I posted the following elsewhere, but it seems appropriate to repeat some of it here.
There are two pieces of legislation making their way through the states.
The first one accounts for the identity of everyone that purchases ammunition using their state ID or drivers license number. This lets police know when a felon has purchased ammo. This was singeing into law in California in 2009. It is possible this kind of reporting system may have allowed police to interview James Eagan Holmes before the massacre took place.
The second one tags each round of ammunition with a serial number stamped in two locations - one on the bullet and one inside the brass shell. This adds between 1% and 4% to the price of each round of ammunition (about $0.15). It allows police to trace bullets they find in one of 8,000+ murder victims back to the purchaser of ammunition. I do not believe this has been signed into law yet.
The intent of these two pieces of legislation is to reduce the number of murder victims without infringing on anyone's right to bear arms.
Both appear to be constitutional.
.
Except that this shooter had no criminal background and identifying bullets after the fact does nothing to prevent the tragedy!
Good laws but not good enough!
Gun trafficing and the insane proliferation of assault weapons is going to keep these incidents coming!
Its too easy for people to get weapons of War and mass destruction! There seems to be needed a common ground of reasoning here, not allowed by the NRA!
It must come from the NRA's members, it will not ever come from the NRA or its lobbyists!
Buying 50 assault rifles and walking into the parking lot and selling them to trafficers needs to be made illegal!
Thats why the Feds can't stop gun smuggleing, because no laws allows them to do anything!
Thats the current NRA position, no laws!
It has to stop!
Does the Affordable Care Act have any provisions with the intent of making sure that people have not only standard health insurance, but also mental health coverage as well? I keep thinking that, although better gun control and better monitoring of who is stockpiling weapons and ammo could help, what really matters is making sure that mentally ill people are spotted and given care before they snap and do something like this. Perhaps even that wouldn't have helped to prevent this. I don't know enough about James Holmes, but I think that in the case of Loughner and the Gabby Giffords incident, that kid could have been given the medication for schizophrenia before he did what he did. Everybody who knew him said he was off, and now that he's being forced to take meds by the state, he's becoming much more coherent and realizes what he did.
Is anyone else having problems with NO video since this site went to the new nbcnews.com format? All video links come up blank with only text comments.
http://video.msnbc.msn.com/nbc-news/48280013/#48280013
There is a difference between gun collectors, gun enthusiasts, hunters and gun-runners and trafficers!
Suggesting that we curtail gun running and the NRA's blind defence of them under the second ammendment is utterly a false premise! Saying America can't have safety first ordinences, like, you can't carry a gun into a night club or Concert hall is not a liberal idea! Its a sane idea!
James Holmes had no criminal record, no mental health record, nothing that would have legally stopped him from getting the weapons and ammunition.
Except for an complete ban of guns and repeal of the 2nd amendment, no law would have stopped this.
James Holmes is not some crazy dude, muttering to himself and mutilating animals. He is you, or me, in our middle class neighbor behind our gated "safe" middle class communities.
When and how are we going to cope with that?
Anyone who wants sensible gun-control and ammunition-control needs to support political representatives (local, state, federal) who agree with them.
It doesn't look like the Supreme Court would uphold any gun or ammunition control legislation. The 2012 election will have consequences we will have to live with for years.