re: Shooting in Virginia: LA representative Steve Scalise shot

It makes a difference when someone calls me "scared of my own shadow" ... and fails to see the irony.

Look, although I agree w/ former Chief Justice Burger that the standing interpretation of the 2nd Amd. is a "fraud" (google "Burger on 2nd Amendment"), I have no problem w/ people arming themselves for personal protection. I am suggesting that we as a nation have a further discussion about additional measures that can hopefully curb all of this gun violence. I agree that handguns are more involved in shootings, on a daily basis. Do I advocate banning handguns? No. There, I am willing to accept the (ridiculous, in my view) level of violence in our country, as an unfortunate byproduct of this constitutional right.

You engage with semantics with rapidly-firing rifles. I call them machine guns. What I mean is, they're military-style weapons. You want to operate a military-style weapon, then sign up at your nearest recruiting station. Just my opinion.

A poster earlier provided what I thought was a reasonable justification for owning such rapidly-firing weapons -- "9/11 happened, you just never know." OK, I'll buy that I guess. Willing to further cogitate on it.

The justification "to protect us from our own country?" Doesn't hunt. In what area of citizen-government interaction is the government MOST intrusive? It's interactions with the police. And here, in this "arena," what do you guys say - you guys who are on edge, on the ready, to stamp down a "tyrannical" government? Sit there, obey every order of the officer, accept his/her insults, do whatever you have to do not to get shot. If you act like you're 'supposed to' you won't be hurt."

You want specificity in legislation that affects ownership of weapons that are conducive to mass shootings .... great. Participate in the process. By all means, I agree that specificity is certainly needed, and I wouldn't want passage of overbroad regulations that could be interpreted to affect legitimate hunting rifles.

All I am saying is that the all too frequent shootings, mass shootings, are (again, in my view) unacceptable, and starting from that premise, what can we do to slow it down? The solution certainly doesn't just involve regulation of guns, but, it certainly does include it to an extent. Yes, we have existing regulations, but obviously they aren't working.