Angela - thank you so much for sharing your very personal story. I too believe there has to be a better way. I think that's what most folks believe - including those who believe in the 2nd Amendment, like me. I also believe that these terrible mass shootings have many complicated factors and will take a multi-faceted approach to deal with in the future - including dealing with mental health care, sensible gun safety and better data sharing/communication between law enforcement and other agencies. I believe we can balance our Constitutionally guaranteed rights with safety and responsibility to ourselves and others.

Some folks that are working on it: http://wearebetterthanthis.org/

Angela...thank you for sharing your story. I have Bipolar Disorder and consider myself an advocate for mental health. I will never own a gun but respect the 2nd amendment. The issue is not about guns...it's about care.

You are right that you can't make a person get help, but I am against limiting gun sales to people with Mental Illness. To me, that is discrimination. If you look at the demographics of violent crimes committed with guns, it would not be people with MI. In fact, I bet it would be near the bottom. We never say as a society to limit races or genders or religions or people with terminal cancer from getting guns, so we shouldn't for people with. Mental illness. LESS THAN 5% OF VIOLENT CRIMES ARE COMMITTED BY A PERSON WITH A MENTAL ILLNESS.

I will never own a gun, but I think of a person who has a family tradition of hunting. I also think of the veterans coming home with depression and PTSD. Guns are a part of their tradition and lifestyle. As long as we have 2nd Amendment rights, these people should have access like anyone else.

The problem comes with access to Psychiatric services. Michigan is 1 of 6 states without mental health parity legislation. Our legislators are also about to pass a bill allowing concealed weapons in schools. It would appear that our lawmakers care more about guns than access to mental health services.

I could talk about the stigma of getting help, but I'll stop here.

I hear what your saying. You've lived it...and you are afraid, because your mom wouldn't get help. I live with it and function better than many people who don't have a diagnosis. I do not want to penalized for someone else's evil actions.

Thanks again for bringing up this topic and sharing. We need this conversation out there:-)

Angela,
Thank you for sharing your personal story. I understand.

Some more background to consider..

http://gawker.com/5968818/i-am-adam-lanzas-mother

Angela, let me say we all feel your pain and frustration.

With regards to caring for the mentally ill, we can thank politicians like the late President Ronald Reagan, and Michigan's Gov. John Engler, for shutting down mental health care programs, and facilities, and throwing these people out on the street, or forcing families to try and deal with it.

With regards to firearms, you've probably heard all the arguments before, but I'd like to make a few points. Making firearms (and ammunition) more expensive will only punish hunters, target shooters, and law abiding gun owners, needlessly. It would accomplish nothing in the way of preventing these mass shootings. And of course we all know even 100% total elimination of firearms will not stop these psychos from mass murder and terrorism. Take Timothy McVeigh for example. He used fertilizer and fuel oil to blow up the Federal building in Oklahoma! Someone could contaminate the food in the cafeteria, drive a dump truck though the playground. There will always be a way!

A recent analogy I read that will hit home with many..."You can kill someone with a baseball bat, or your car. But I don't try to deny you driving to Little League practice!" So it's just as senseless to deny gun owners from enjoying their sport, and especially protecting themselves, and their loved ones, by eliminating firearms.

I have to ask those of you who feel guns should not exist. How do you intend to protect yourself, and your families, should a psycho enter your home in the night with a machete, Hell bent on hacking all of you to pieces?

This is a very serious question, I would sincerely be interested in your response! You think it won't/can't happen to you? You think you live in a safe neighborhood where something like this would never happen?

Thank you, Angela.

Excellent.

A must read! Thank you for sharing,

The solution Angela is not to lock your gun in a safe. Get a CPL (Concealed Pistol License), then get proper training to become familiar with your weapon, and how to use it with confidence. There are numerous classes especially for women, taught by women. Then keep it with you, carry it at all times.

Think of it as you do your cellphone. A tool that you carry every day, everywhere you go, for your safety. Only it's much faster, and more effective than calling 911, and you are not at someone else's mercy, or should I say lack of.

He's right, you just need to leave it sitting next to the baby monitor and your kid's blankies in the middle of the night.

These assault rifles are weapons of mass destruction. No one needs an assault rifle to protect themselves or their families. I don't care if Friday's shooter was mentally unstable or a healthy individual, these were war weapons he had access to.

Friday's shooter's family was an NRA poster family 5 minutes before he killed these people.

Do not compare cars to guns. Cars are not built to be more effective killing machines.

Tell me why one shoe bomber on a plane has caused our nation to be required to remove their shoes at the airport, but 20 dead babies doesn't equate more gun legislation?

You have no defense, gun zealots.

Gun Facts - Your Guide to Debunking Gun Control Myths
http://www.gunfacts.info/

This was a tragic, senseless mass murder. The nation grieves, and rightly so. Now everyone’s attention is focused on preventing future occurrences by either taking away the efficient tools to murder people, limiting access to those tools for those with mental illness, or maintaining our liberty to keep and bear arms to defend ourselves. These are important discussions but ignore a far greater evil that has claimed millions of innocent lives…

Does no one grieve for the millions of children who have been murdered in the womb by their mothers, some of whom were coerced into having an abortion by boyfriends? Why does our President opine about Senatorial candidates in Indiana having no right to weigh in on this topic since they are men? He insists that it’s above his pay grade, yet this most pro-abortion President in American history voted for legislation that would let babies born as a result of a botched abortion die on the operating table.

We need to be better wanters and work together to reduce this tragedy. Adoption is the loving option that is ignored by the abortion industry and its supporters who are unwilling to have even the most basic regulations on limiting a woman’s “right to choose.”

It’s long past time for Planned Parenthood to be turned loose from the federal teat and given its independence. Yes, they do provide some non-abortion services, but the vast majority of their business is killing fetuses (babies if they’re wanted, fetuses if they’re not). Like any business, they can shift their funds around to separate the distasteful and controversial main purpose of their existence away from the “virtuous” purposes we are all forced to supply with our taxes.

We are slaughtering a whole generation of children before they have the chance to live. Yes, America has its own version of child sacrifice, and promotes it overseas in the name of population control.

Please stay on topic folks. You're opening up a whole new can of worms. Start another thread if you feel the need to discuss abortion.

Leave it to Dale to spin wildly OFF topic.

Thanks for the link Frustrated Old Man. Here's one for you and it's not collecting money for the NRA.

http://guninformation.org/

Lots of good discussion on this topic, it will surely be debated for some time to come..I have mixed feeling on the whole gun control thing..I understand that we the people have the RIGHT to bare arms, but sometimes I wonder if we're responsible enough of a society any more to afford that priviledge. Why does someone NEED an assult rifle I'll never understand. And I wold absoluely NEVER posses a firearm if I had children in the home. Just my opinion...

Actually, it’s not off topic. This is a typical leftist strategy to use a national tragedy to decrease liberty and increase the size and span of government control. It makes things more complicated than necessary and combines issues (gun control and mental illness) when they can be dealt with separately.

It’s an example of focusing on a smaller evil that we think something can be done about, while ignoring a huge elephant under the rug (the millions of children who die each year before they are born). We’re all potential Hitlers except for the grace of God.

The use of the term “assault weapon” is a politically charged anti-gun statement. The Brady Bill banned certain types of weapons because they looked menacing, but did not ban hunting rifles that had exactly the same functional capabilities. This did nothing but make people feel better about doing something about a problem.

Our first responders can only help once they get there. What’s wrong with allowing elementary teachers to have CCW training and a pistol in a locked drawer? A similar situation occurred in China less than a week before. Only the police are allowed to have guns there. Violent crimes are committed with knives. Do we really want to follow China’s method of dealing with people who disagree, shipping dissidents off to remote prison camps?

Do we really want to abolish our 2nd Amendment without changing it by the written rules? I’m glad the NRA is alert to efforts to subvert our Constitution and willing to block efforts to change it by an emotional public response to a tragedy. If you disarm the public, you soon will have a compliant people unable to defend its rights against domestic tyrants.

If you haven’t already, read
http://rochester.patch.com/blog_posts/guns-arent-going-anywhere

As someone who has survived a brain tumor and depression, I empathize with your situation, Angela. The depression was a far bigger hurdle. In my case the depression was anger turned inward; I was only a danger to myself. By the grace of God, I came through it by putting one foot in front of the other. Many do not survive, choosing not to take meds that can help them and end up taking their own life. In some cases, these same psych meds can cause psychotic behavior – medicine is not an exact science.

The best advice I can give to a loved one of someone with mental illness is to detach enough to let them live their own life. You cannot do enough to save them from themselves. That burden of guilt is not for you to carry. Even if there was unlimited money available for psych care, some will not make it. Do what you can to help them and protect others and leave the rest up to God.

Frustrated Old Man, you say "Most of that info is very old". Sort of like the language in the 2nd amendment? Stop the hypocrisy.

Snyder just backed down, the NRA is about to do the same,. You probably should try to be open to discussion also. Things are going to change. They have to.

The question i always have when people give the argument that cars, knifes and other things can also kill people so why not ban everything is this.... Assault weapons are designed to kill people, as many as possible in the most efficient manner. That is there primary purpose, it is not the primary purpose for a car or other object. I hunt and i can say that none of my hunting friends, NRA members and gun enthusiasts i know have ever used those weapons to go hunting. They were designed for trained military personnel. Hand guns are protected by the federal government and hunting will still go on as normal with or without a restriction on certain types of weapons, so i dont know why these debates get so heated.

Lynn, as time passes and new data are added to existing data, our conclusions can change based on new information. Horray Science! As opinions change, the constitution can be amended, but this has not happened. The point you're trying to make to Old Man is invalid. If the language in the 2nd amendment was changed and old man was still referring to the original text, you may have a point

To Frustrated Old Man: I am a legal gun owner with a carry permit. I defend the right of Americans to own guns for hunting and self protection. That said, we have always had limits to our freedom. You can't yell "fire" in a crowded theater, despite first amendment rights. You can't buy a stinger missle or grenade launcher, despite 2nd amendment rights to bear arms.

What we are talking about is a responsible line. Does the assault rifle pass that line? Most would probably agree it does. There doesn't appear to be any real reason to own one. There are better alternatives for hunting and self protection. Do we need 30-100 capacity clips? Probably not. I can't recall a deer waiting around past the second shot.

My fear is that our government will approach this as soley a gun problem. They will miss the opportunity to address the broader issue of the violent culture we blast our kids with in TV, movies, video games and the horrible way we brush mental illness aside. A knee jerk gun law reaction will just feel good until the next tragedy.

Well i think its pretty obvious is that these type of weapons were not available at the time of the writing of the second ammendment. I also don't want knee jerk reactions that restrict responsible citizens like myself from hunting or for protection but i dont need a grenade launcher or milliary weapons to do that. I am not worried my basic rights will be infringed, they werent during the 1994 to 2004 restrictions and this time it looks like they want to be doing a full approach of teaching/training and helping people be more aware of mental health, making gun owners more responsible (he should of not had access to his mothers guns, any responsible gun owner knows this) so i am open to cleaning up the bad gun owners who give us good ones a bad name. Enjoy

Two (or more) handguns can easily be concealed, each with a 10-20 round magazine. Additional magazines are about half the size of a pack of cigarettes. In reality, this is FAR more dangerous than a long gun "assault" rifle, which may look evil, but is extremely hard to conceal. Also, making laws to reduce the size of magazines means that nefarious people will have to go to extreme measures, like duct-taping two clips together in order to double their capacity. Or, maybe they would be willing to break the law and buy one of the 10's of millions of high-capacity mags that would still exist after passage of such a law. My guess is that anyone willing to commit mass murder would also be willing to commit "purchase of illegal high-capacity magazine". Emotions are high here. Let's try to make sense in our solutions.

For those who need to know (it shouldn't matter)..... I own zero guns and never have. I am not an NRA member, have never been.

Or two mags, Jerry- whatever!

Angela,
Absolutely agree with both issues in your blog. in mine printed late yesterday in the Farmington-mi Patch, I make the point (with respect to gun control) that the Heller and McDonald decisions of the Supreme Court reverse long standing and historic decisions including one in 1939 that was unanimous - both the 2008 and 2010 decisions by the way were 5-4, hardly overwhelming. The other point is that a car is manufactured to transport people from point a to point b. Firearms are manufactured to kill, period end. Target shooting is merely a technique for honing one's skills at doing what the manufacturer built the weapon for: to kill.

Anyone know what happened to the "Giving up Guns" thread?

It remains to be seen whether the Presdient's efforts will REALLY address the problem or just become a political gun law exercise to appease the masses, which will do nothing to stop the next massacre.

-Gun's arent going away . The bad guys will always have them and the law biding citizens of America will never give them up, for that reason alone. There are between 350 and 500 million guns in America. Lets be realistic.
-Mass shooters have a scary profile consistency. Loner middle class white males who were outcasts and escaped reality through violent video games and movies. Often with mental issues.

Will the President's commission come down on his hollywood friends for the violent culture they foster through video games, movies and music? I doubt it.

Will Congress be willing to fund mental illness treatment to help address the next mass shooter before they become one? I doubt it

I expect they will simply reinstate the assault weapons ban and a limit on the size of magazines. I dont have a problem with that as I see little use for them anyways. It just bothers me that this will have no effect and we will be talking about this again .....Keep in mind that I have a concelaed weapons permit and own several guns

I am hopeful that what comes out of this is a holistic approach. Stiffer requirements for gun ownership ( I am NOT anti-gun), better healthcare services, a change in the media and how they report, and better school safety. There is no one size fits all answer. I don't care what the answer is, as long as people are safer, and I don't know what it is, but I know what we have now is not working.

Too many people are responding aggressively at the mere thought of a certain type of gun going away, which I think is ridiculous, but I also see the point regarding criminals not following laws, bad guys being bad guys, etc. It is quite frankly a mess that should have been cleaned up 20 years ago.

Another problem Bush left for Obama to solve.

Doug - Seriously? Obama came in with an economy, banking, housing on the verge of a full on Depression - the Markets in a literal freefall, 9% GDP contraction, 800,000/month job losses, our iconic major manufacturing base tettering towards liquidation. And, an opposition party who proclaimed their number one job was - JOBS? DEBT? ECONOMY? NO - to make Obama a one term president, ready to oppose legislation of ANY kind. And, with the gun lobby throwing millions behind the opposition (as well as any Repub candidate who dared even speak of guns), who in the world thinks gun control was at all doable at that time?

The Facts are gun control does not work, in fact it works in reverse by allowing more violent crime. Chicago is a prime example, very tough gun control and out of control violent crime! Many people use these so called "assault" rifles for hunting and target shooting. In fact it is these gun control laws like "gun free zones" that open the door for these mass killings by leaving people defenseless against these deranged sick killers. There is no such thing as a gun free zone for criminals obviously. Yes, educate people on safe use of firearms and keep them out of reach of the mentally ill but don't disarm the law abiding sane people!
http://news.msn.com/us/video?videoid=7389caeb-9b4e-4384-86a5-0038afd9dab2&channelindex=2&from=en-us_msnhp&form=msnrll

I didn't believe it ! so I Googled it. and there it was. it was the online video game entitled "Kindergarten Killers". Google it and then play it. It's as bad as it sounds.
However, just like the those how would take away all guns from citizens, there are those who want to censor all violent video games and violent movies.
I fit in neither camp. I am a firm believer in both the first and second amendments to our great Constitution. Which leaves the solution to preventing another Sandy Hook is in the mental Health arena. In my opinion, we as a society must re-open the mental hospitals.

@Lee, video games have destroyed our children. They have desenitized our children. These kids who played hour upon hours of brutal video games will need mental health attention. This generation.............is a mess.

pam ghaster