Summations Only

Jon asks: The odds on this horrible scenario ever eventuating are so small.Maybe I should build a meteorite-proof roof on my house as well.

Asgara reminds me: I feel so blue.... Edited by xongsmith, : creebled web pointer

Faith writes: You are aware that the mentally ill person who should not have been allowed to have guns was the mother, right? The son was worse, but the mother was also way over the line.

Faith restates: What year & state was that? In my high school (1961-1964) you would have been taken to the Principal's Office, your parents summoned and then you were sent home. A second time & you would get suspended. IIRC.Of course this was in the People's Republic of Ann Arbor, MI.

Thank you. Nevada? OK. very different world..- nate

But Percy - it was the MOTHER who shouldn't have had any guns.How do we, as a society, intercept that? She was very threatened by her estranged partner and went bananas at the shooting range.How do we recognize when it's wrong?We can now have the 20-20 hindsight....meh

Percy notes, parenthetically: I was thinking of Gun deaths divided by the radius to the nearest 100 guns....But even there things can be different. The problem with any plot of data is that the USA is always going to be a huge outlier that would properly be left out of any modelling.

Percy writes: There is a third way - non-lethal defensive innovations, such as a 911-calling switch that instantly locks down all the rooms in your house (assuming windows are covered with gratings to prevent exit). Currently these things are too expensive, but there should be moneyed research programs. Also non-lethal police weapons (we have rubber bullets, tasers & tear gas, but somehow these are not the weapons of choice in the heat of the moment). I remember seeing an article showing this "gun" that sent out a huge bunch of sticky stuff to ensnare the suspect - another expensive technology. Stun darts? Captain James Tiberius Kirk: "Set your phasers on 'stun'."

marc 9000 asks: Tell that to Dick Cheney & his cronies when he told the secret oil baron meeting before Dubya even got elected by fraud that "what this country needs is another Pearl Harbor".Study the long history of the Bush family and the Saudis. Study where the money is STILL going. Read up. Get hip.

MrHambre asks: I prefer to think of it as "enabling" the Saudis to pull it off at some date, but not knowing when.It is curious that once all airplanes were grounded, the only flight allowed was to carry the Saudis out of the USA back to their country.And for Condoleeza Rice to claim that no one could have imagined it while the Pentagon itself was rehearsing such a scenario - that took a lot of cheek.

Percy repeats: I think we need to rephrase this: .I would submit that the more guns someone gets, the more crazy they are revealing themselves to be, except for collectors.in other words - it's not the guns it''s the idiots that get them.

Did we already address the possibility of liability insurance for gun owners?

ICANT asks: I think there has been a tremendous outrage. You have heard of Nader's "Unsafe At Any Speed" and MADD?? The cops & courts around the country have stepped up their penalties for DD.And the advances on car safety have made big differences in deaths per vehicle mile traveled. They almost have fallen *under* the gun deaths, as you, yourself, quoted - missing by a mere 1310 for that year. Who knows what it is 3-4 years later as more old cars get retired? PLUS there is an unknown factor of exposure probabilities. It's hard to really compare the two events.It's just that the gun outrage is more in vogue this day. - nate

Faith sugggests: In fact, even better, would be to put the NRA in charge of this database. We can give them armbands while they add to the database.Once we saddle them with that job, they won't be able to be so obnoxious. See the movie "Cold Turkey" starring Dick Van Dyke.