But back on track: Why a group of underage teenagers should be allowed to own a street-chop double barrel and a TEC-DC9, not to mention a Mini-14 (replete with custom stocks), without their parents knowing or paying attention? That’s the issue.

My grandfather had a smallish gun collection (maybe 15 total), many of which he acquired during his time in the Army during and after WWII. My father and uncle have also always owned guns, which they use for bird hunting and skeet shooting, and my grandmother was a crack shot until she damaged her shoulder from excessive knitting. (Seriously.)

When I was old enough to be able to handle it, I got my dad to teach me how to use my grandmother’s shotgun, both because I wanted to know how and because I didn’t want to be afraid of guns. I was taught that you *always* treat a gun as if it were loaded with the safety off and that you never point a gun at anything or anyone that you don’t intend to shoot.

The reality is that guns are dangerous if the user is careless or has malicious intent, and people with malicious intent can use a great many weapons besides firearms. Interest in guns and shooting is not “disturbing”, “chilling”, or “sick.” As for imagining targets to be human, when I was in the sixth grade, I used to visualize the face of one of my teachers in the video game “Duck Hunt.” I had no homicidal intent toward her whatsoever — I wouldn’t have dared to even say something rude to her — but she made me frustrated and angry and bore a more than passing resemblance to the face the ducks made when shot.

The video of the boys seems disturbing largely because we know what happened next. If taken out of that context, as if the people on the tape were completely anonymous, there’s nothing to indicate that they’re anything other than stupid, reckless teenagers. Which, fortunately for everyone who’s ever been a teenager, is not illegal.

Have you all seen (movie) BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE by Michael Moore? I think he is on the right track

I am not against gun ownership, but I think it helps to see the situation from outside the box

I have lived for 15 years in the states, but I still have the foreigners eyes, and it saddens me
to see that very smart people can’t see how their kids are indoctrinated to revere a culture of violence

We have a hard time educating the young to love learning, but smarter or more powerful people (advertisers, politicians, the media , etc) can present their side and manipulate the whole society

DIVIDE AND CONQUER, and believe it or not, it goes on in a very subtle way in most issues.

Whether is x or y issue, if we don’t orchestrate our intelligences, and coordinate our strength, we won’t find the real solutions to our deep social problems

The real problem here is that we are trying to solve a social problem from an individualistic point of view ( I learn this concept from the excellent book THE PURSUIT OF LONELINESS, By Philip Slater) and then we don’t really make a dent on the problem

We need the outsiders insight, that can see what we can’t see

Believe it or not, we are seen from abroad as a very violent culture, that reveres violence and later we ask: ” I don’t understand why that happened?”

Even the media plays on this, and perpetrates what it says it didn’t want to happen

How can you say? It is so fun shooting at something and hate doing math?

Can you guys see what is going on?

Any social program that really tries to help is non existant (or about to be fazed out)

I come from abroad, and if you don’t give young people positive outlets and opportunities, they will look for a way to entertain themselves, and sometimes doing the wrong

Where are the outside skating rinks, the after school programs, the organizations that pay well to people who help young people?

We think we are free but we are not

We are slaves of our fears, of our firearms, of our brutal economy

We revere power, money, status, but proclaim to have the highest ideals of freedom and equality

We are secretely racist, sexist, classist, but we think we have a good heart and compassion

The real problem starts in what we value

If we truly value humanity, then we will refuse to sell out to help create bombs to bomb the hell out of other countries

If we really care about having a good spirit, we would read what american foreing policy really does (read, watch, listen Noam Chomsky) and realize that what goes around comes around

We will have more columbines and more september 11’s unless we dare to look at how we contribute to the problem (watch pbs tv program SPIRITUAL AND EMOTIONAL BLINDSPOTS, By Virginia Satir and Patricia Sun, to have an insight why we can’t dare to see our contribution to the problem, the transcripts are online)

We are all connected

The real good people need to unite

Not with arms, but with insights, with the awareness that only when we raise our human consciousness and embrace all humanity, only then we will find the breakthroughs to help all society

I respect and love America, America has the means to be the greatest spiritual leader of all countries, and the opportunities to raise to achieve greatness, or the opportunity to deceive ourselves and fall prey to advertisemnt and the media

I know most of you are real good people, but maybe can’t see my perspective

I only write because maybe one insight, one new vision, one new concept that I have, could be use by you to help ALL

I admire and respect you all, for speaking up and sharing your views

Best of life to You

Nacho Man

My favorite retort is that to date, I’ve probably fired about 2,000 rounds of ammuntion from various handguns, shotguns and rifles, and have yet to kill anyone. My questionable marksmanship aside, I don’t think that’s mere coincidence

A gun is a tool, it’s not some monster, it’s a tool, it’s purpose, is to propell a soft metal slug into a target with accuracy at range.

It’s completely up to the user of the firearm to carefuly and moraly select his or her target, not the gun

Guns kill animals pretty efficiently, certainly requiring less skill than a bow, and less randomness than a trap. For people in rural areas, and for those who hunt for food, the firearm is a vital part of their existence.

Even so, the purpose for which a firearm was initially created does not inform its moral stature. That is to say, it’s still just an inanimate object that has positive as well as destructive uses. Whether or not any of those uses were the ones the inventor had in mind is not relevant.