I can assure you I will be in bed before 10 am tomorrow morning.

For what it's worth, the largest mass murder of school children in U.S. history did not involve any type of gun (except for the perp's suicide at the end of his rampage, which also killed a few others): Bath School Disaster.  This rampage killed 38 school children, plus two teachers and four other adults for a total of 44 killed. One question that I have, which obviously I don't know the answer to, is whether or not Lanza, if he hadn't had access to his mother's guns, would have concocted some other method of mass murder, such as a bomb or incendiary device of some sort.  I think it's a question worth discussing. 

I think a lot of people on both sides of the gun control argument are doing the exact same things they are accusing the other side of doing and many on both sides of the argument sound pretty childish. I also think gun control was not the subject of this topic and should not be discussed in this thread, according to the board's policies.

really? Self accountability? That s what you took away?

I am interested in your perspective of the real issue. In your own words what do you see as the "real issue"

This thread has been fairly all over the board and shown that there are a lot of thoughts out there regardinr how we are to react to an incedent, how to prevent future similar incedents, the root cause of the problems we have in the US and various other opinions on all sides and subjects sparked from an OP regarding the allegedly shameful actions of the athletic department. I am really curious now after reading this response (and the rest of your responses in the thread) as to what you see as the real issue   .....you kind of alluded to the possibility that you may be the only one who really knows......

Can you please be the one in line when the next idiot goes postal at McDonalds? It may help improve the countries gene pool.

Situation . . . though I try I really don't understand where you are coming from.  Are you arguing for a law of jungle with just a little referring in extreme cases?  I'm no communitarian and am pretty much in the rugged individualism category, but what you say seems to me to be advocating almost a Wild West kind of mentality.  I can't agree with that at all.  We are a nation of laws and no man (or woman) is above the law.  Now if a private citizen could have intervened to prevent the slaughter in Connecticut I would've applaud the action, even if it was technically illegal in some way; however, I think that would be the exception not the rule. 

Do we have any linguists in the house who can translate Situation.  I thought I had a vague idea of what he was trying to communicate, but his latest post removes even that shred of imagined comprehension on my part.  I'm at a total loss.  My only thought at this point is that whatever he's say, I think I completely disagree with it.

SO ,,,,,

I am a little more confused.

Are you saying you think the rights of the indvidual.>group? and that is an acceptable way to function as a society?

Or are you saying that America has veered off course and that is the direction we are headed?

Is it the rights of individuals to police themselves up to the point where another person whose rights he is infringing gets pissed off enough that he takes matters in his own hands?...that is kind of how that reads.  Maybe I am not understanding the whole concept.  That seems a little wid west frontier to me....past the point of the individual getting pissed off and seems to go against the general function of a set of laws enacted by local, state and federal legislative bodies.

Do we have a linguist in the house?  Can some translate what Situation is saying?  I thought I had a general idea of his point of view, but now with this latest post I realize that I'm totally confused.  I will posit, though, that I'm pretty sure that whatever it is that he's saying, I'm totally against it.  I just wish I understood his position.  

I can see the point of both sides.  Kids being shot is an absolute tragedy, there is no debate.  They never had a chance to defend themselves, they never did something to attract the malevolence that piece of crap displayed, they never got to see their lives fulfilled.  Things like that are absolutely depressing.

That said, I don't see where it's required though.  What good does a moment of silence do?  If a PA announcer needs to tell you to have "a moment" for something like that, then you either didn't hear about it or didn't care in the first place.  For those bashing those with cold calculation-type thinking about it, and for those who say it's a national tragedy because it happened to your fellow man, let me ask you this.  How many moments of silence are held for the civilians killed by OUR drone strikes?  The insane guy at the park in Norway who picked off anyone who he saw?  How many for innocents killed by dictatorships?  How about the continent of Africa, where genocide happened a lot in part due to our need to get shiny diamonds?  What about the innocents killed in the war between the Israelis and Palestinians?  The kid who is caught in gang crossfire?  The father of 3 who is killed in a work accident?  The children across the world who die from the elements and malnutrition?  I apologize for the length of this, but I can go on and on with it.

If you want to say that we are desensitized, then guess what?  You're absolutely right!  Mankind is an extremely violent species and has been committing heinous atrocities like this since we knew how.  I was born in 1990.  I remember seeing Columbine on TV.  I remember 9-11.  All of that (including what happened in Connecticut) is absolute child's play to what happened in Nazi Germany and in the Soviet Union.  Those paled in comparison to what happened at the hands of the Mongols and civilizations from before that.*  How are we supposed to be completely sensitized when the hatred that was shown in Connecticut is a part of our DNA?  Please do not take this as me condoning murder, but if you study history, the fact that this is horrific by our standards is astonishing.

*While the Nazis and Soviets killed far more people, they didn't hang the skins of their victims from city walls or build pyramids of heads outside of besieged cities.

I don't know where you get off with your disrespect, but that aside, it's hard to debate anything with you for two reasons. First, your ideas are a bit unclear. You spend much time criticizing the ideas of others, but far less time making your opinion crystal clear.

Second, your massive ego is getting in the way of a meaningful exchange. You have convinced yourself that your way is the only way. So debate would seem fruitless.

Thanks.  I think maybe you do have the general drift of his thinking.  If he's really saying that "restricting freedom to prevent violence is still violence," then I'm right that I totally disagree with him.  There's a big difference between a lunatic killing innocent children -- whether it be with a gun or a bomb or some by some other means -- and a police officer or a private citizen shooting the person committing or trying to commit the violence against children in this case.  Or, to use an example from something historical that I've been reading about recently:  There's a big difference between KKK violence against blacks in the South and President Grant's sending in the Army to quell that violence.  Sure the U.S. Army may have shot a few KKK members, but that was in defense of basic human rights.  The KKK was violating the newly freedmen's basic human rights.  How one could posit a moral equivalence between the two is beyond me.  If that's what he's really saying, I'm dumbfounded.  

I don't think an Objectivist (and to be clear, I am not one...but I do like to think about these things) would oppose the force used against the KKK, because the KKK instigated the violence and deprivation of liberty of the freedmen. For example, Rand herself was a strong proponent of Israel's right to use force against Arab states as a matter of self-defense.