Yes indeed, more money towards mental health services/programs were mentioned by both the mayor, the police and the school board on the pannel. Any more questions Steve?

Mental Health Care For Kids Severely Lacking, Says GAO today! http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joy-resmovits/mental-health-care-for-ki_b_2449205.html?utm_hp_ref=tw

Steve, no response here? When you can't reply, you go below and pick another topic?

Steve, we've had this chat before but here I go again...it's not my decision, but a discussion. Personally, I'd like to see weapons that are meant for "mass shootings" that shoot 6 bullets per second and hold 100 rounds to be banned because I believe they are perfect for our millitary at war but not for our citizens; for the rest of the guns, I'd like to see simple regulations applied, just like we regulate car driver because cars don't kill, people kill people. Tests, education, practice and background checks.

"shoot 6 bullets per second"

There is no legal gun in the US that shoots 6 bullets per second. A gun where one pulls the trigger and it fires until you let go is illegal other than for the military and law enforcement. A semi-automatic requires the pulling of the trigger for each shot. No one can pull a trigger 6 times in one second.

Sorry Seamus Carty, but you were misinformed: "Lanza forced his way inside the Sandy Hook Elementary School and opened fire with a .223-caliber Bushmaster rifle — which can fire up to six bullets per second. "
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/hunt-motive-sandy-hook-elementary-shooting-article-1.1220914#ixzz2Hp1lLEEa

The NY Daily News story is wrong. A semi-automatic rifle, by definition, requires the shooter to pull the trigger for each shot. If you hold the trigger, it does not keep firing bullets. Unless it was illegally modified, it is not possible to squeeze a trigger 6 times in a second.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semi-automatic_rifle

Not everything one reads on the internet is correct...

Wrong again Seamus Carty...maybe the NY Daily isn't good enough for you, how about your beloved Fox News, which I'm sure is where you get all your up to date news Impossible huh? "4-5 rounds per second" means what to you? http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/01/11/eric-bolling-shooting-4-or-5-rounds-per-second-is-a-constitutional-right/ Fox News host Eric Bolling on Friday insisted that assault-style rifles which can shoot “four or five rounds per second” were “protected under the Constitution.”
Raw Story (http://s.tt/1yip1)
“You’re talking about a fully automatic,” Rivera pointed out. “But you’re also enough of a gun advocate to know that with a semi-automatic, you can get off four or five rounds per second.”

“Absolutely,” Bolling agreed. “And that’s protected under the constitution. And why are they even putting that in discussions?”

“When does the liberal left say, ‘Enough, semi-automatic rifles are banned’? Boom. Then one day, they say, ‘You know what? Semi-automatic handguns are illegal also,’” he added.

Raw Story (http://s.tt/1yip1)

Some news guys may believe that one can pull a trigger 4, 5 or 6 times in a second, but I do not. I'd like to see it done. Remember, a semi-automatic means that one pull equals one round shot. Could you do that?

Would your guard stand out in the playground scanning for trouble? watch the bus loop while kids arrived from every direction? scan every backpack? what about games? what about kids walking to school?

Why don't we address the building issues at our schools that we can, AND make it harder for WMDs to find their way into troubled young men's hands, AND make mental health an important issue, and really address bullying, and do the complex work its going to take to fix this problem...

That was brought up but they had a mass shooting in many places where an armed guard didn't do really well against a semi-automatic weapon shooting at you unexpectedly and every bullet explodes as soon as it hits body matter. Also, we didn't want the kids to feel that they constantly had something to be afraid of by going to school. If we handle the mental health and gun regulations, along with the safety measures that are being taken, we'll be in great shape. I'm hoping the police dept does a gun buy back program and gets 30% of the circulating guns that also reduces crime like they did in LA. Many were turning in their guns because they were afraid they would fall into the wrong hands by other family members, kids or neighbors.

If I'm correct, Columbine had an armed guard.

Please! You are trusting that simple education will fix that with kids? Do you know how many times a parents has to remind children to use a napkin or look both ways before they cross the street? Kids will always make bad decisions because they are kids and are learning. You expect to have kids behave perfectly around weapons all the time? There are a lot of irresponsible adults who still don't know how to behave around weapons, let alone kids.

By the way, some video games look very real to kids and dead is never dead on a video game, there's always another round, and you start over the game whenever, day after day.

So many levels of mental illness...mental illness doesn't kill on it's own, they access to a gun to do that; much easier to regulate guns like we regulate cars, really no difference. What are you so afraid of, you should be able to pass the test no problem right because you are a responsible gun owner like we all expect gun owners to be. Shouldn't be a threat.

You want a list of anyone who has ever suffered from a mental health issue? Past and Present, from baby blues, to depression, and on up? Ok, Ill give you a list. It's called pretty much everybody.

So instead of requiring people to say possibly take tests the same way we require a person to take two to get their drivers license... you want to start a witch hunt? That sounds smart, real smart.

Explaining to adults their responsibilities that children shouldn't have access to guns at any given time unless they are in the presence of a licensed person who's had training with gun safety for target shooting, watching them at all times, etc. I don't have a desire to teach my children to use guns; they can do that on their own when they are 18, just like chosing one of the 200 religions out there, 18 is a good time for them to learn about whatever they want in life and make their own choices as adults.

The real problem is people caring more about guns than other people. Thats what it comes down to. Regulate the guns, make people responsible for them, and death rates due to guns will fall. Will it stop all murders, but if it stops any from being brutally murdered, isn't it worth it? I mean come on, stop being so selfish,

Less guns equals less deaths, smart people with guns vs irresponsible people with guns...do the math. http://greengurlz.com/?p=6140 "Critics of the program complain that guns used in crimes may go unnoticed because ballistics checks aren’t conducted on the collected weapons, but the LAPD thinks it’s worth it. According to the boys in blue, nearly 8,000 guns have been turned in, and the city has seen a 39% reduction in gang crimes, a 33% reduction in the number of “shots fired” incidents, and 241 fewer shot victims. And one less rocket-launcher on the streets is just good news for everyone." Do the math.

You sound like the miraculous child who never made mistakes as a child and understood adult subjects really well at all ages, not to mention have an adult IQ and have perfect adult decision making skills with zero experience as a child. Really? First time I've heard of anyone being perfect. Impressive. Wonder if your parents would tell me how many times they had to remind you to look both ways before you crossed the street as a child, how many times they'd tell me about your perfect childhood, how you never learned anything twice, or did they simply say "go ahead and play in the traffic"?

" Regulate the guns, make people responsible for them, and death rates due to guns will fall."

really? The toughest gun laws in the country are in Chicago and DC and gun deaths are epidemic.
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/editorials/2012/12/27/chicago-proof-strict-gun-laws-dont-work.html

DC is the same. Strict gun laws and out of control gun violence....

Dear Seamus Carty: "The contrast between the United States and Japan could not be starker. If the United States has the loosest gun laws in the developed world, then Japan has the strictest. Most guns are illegal, with onerous restrictions on the few that are legal. Police also have far broader search-and-seizure powers. But the country also has a remarkably low rate of firearm deaths. In 2008, when the United States experienced over 12,000 gun-related homicides, Japan had only 11, or fewer than half as many killed Friday in Newtown, Conn. That same year in the United States, 587 were killed just by accidental gun discharges. In 2006 in Japan, a nation of 128 million people, only two were killed by guns." http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2012/12/14/the-japan-lesson-can-americans-learn-from-the-country-that-has-almost-zero-gun-deaths/

A firearms expert says Canada's tougher gun laws likely help insulate this country from U.S-style massacres like the one in Connecticut Friday that shocked the world.
In many U.S. states, weapons of many kinds are readily available for legal purchase with just a driver’s licence as ID.“I guess you could say part of their problem would be the fact that their constitution allows it, unlike in Canada [where] it's more of a privilege,” said Tony Di Salvatore is a firearms instructor in Surrey, B.C.It takes up to 60 days to obtain a firearm in this country, after registering, taking a course and going through background checks. “It's … just not a five minute process,” Di Salvatore said.
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/editorials/2012/12/27/chicago-proof-strict-gun-laws-dont-work.html

You can cite Japan and other countries all you want, but the fact remains that there are hundreds of millions of guns in the US already. A good percentage of those are illegal. If you take away the guns from law abiding citizens, they are defenseless against the criminals.

All countries, when they began regulations, had to weed out the street guns....and they did, the stats prove it....come up with a better argument that actually has numbers!

"when they began regulations, had to weed out the street guns....and they did, the stats prove it...."

What stats? What countries? Where has it occurred that a government has taken all the guns off the streets, legally owned and illegal?

You ask for proof and don't provide any for your claims.... How do you believe the US government could get 300 million guns collected?

Dear Seamus, introducing the United Kingdom! Regulation didn't magically pop up, everyone started at one point in time and took the time needed to reduce the number of illegal guns.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_the_United_Kingdom The United Kingdom has one of the lowest rates of gun homicides in the world with 0.07 recorded intentional homicides committed with a firearm per 100,000 inhabitants in 2009 compared to the United States' 3.0 (over 40 times higher) and to Germany's 0.21 (3 times higher).[3] However, the overall rate of homicide by all means, 1.2 per 100k, is significantly higher than that in most comparable European nations, e.g. Germany (0.9) [4]

With the exception of Northern Ireland, it has been public policy that police officers in the United Kingdom should not generally be armed with firearms.[5][6][7] Despite police being unarmed, shooting fatalities of members of the police are extremely rare; there were three in England and Wales in the eleven-year period from 2000/01 to 2010/11.[8] About 7,000 police officers have received firearms training.[7][9] Standard police firearms include semi-automatic carbines, and pistols, such as the Heckler & Koch MP5SF, and Glock 17.[10]

Did the UK ever confiscate people's guns? There are hundreds of millions of guns in the US, many illegally possessed. How can they be gathered by the govt so that law abiding citizens do not have to live in fear of criminals with illegal guns?

I was in Jamaica once. Scary place.

Wrong, homicide is 5% not crime rate in the US. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States Crime has been a long-standing concern in the United States, with high rates at the beginning of the 20th century compared to parts of Western Europe. In 1916, 198 homicides were recorded in Chicago, a city of slightly over 2 million at the time. This level of crime was not exceptional when compared to other American cities such as New York City, but was much higher relative to European cities, such as London, which then had three times the population but recorded only 45 homicides in the same year.[6] Some countries such as Canada, however, have similar definitions of what constitutes a violent crime, and nearly all countries had the same definition of the characteristics that constitutes a homicide. Overall the total crime rate of the United States is similar to that of other highly developed countries. Some types of reported property crime in the U.S. survey as lower than in Germany or Canada, yet the homicide rate in the United States is substantially higher....."SUBSTANTIALLY HIGHER"

So there goes the japan argument. Actually Steve though, I think that number is for Honduras, not Jamaica... but it still applies.

Steve, where do you get those percentage numbers??? posting a link would make you be a little believable, but these numbers are way off. Wait, wait, let me guess....Fox? That would explain why the numbers are Wayyyyyy off. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2012/12/14/the-japan-lesson-can-americans-learn-from-the-country-that-has-almost-zero-gun-deaths/ "The contrast between the United States and Japan could not be starker. If the United States has the loosest gun laws in the developed world, then Japan has the strictest. Most guns are illegal, with onerous restrictions on the few that are legal. Police also have far broader search-and-seizure powers. But the country also has a remarkably low rate of firearm deaths. In 2008, when the United States experienced over 12,000 gun-related homicides, Japan had only 11, or fewer than half as many killed Friday in Newtown, Conn. That same year in the United States, 587 were killed just by accidental gun discharges. In 2006 in Japan, a nation of 128 million people, only two were killed by guns."

Homicide rate in US: 4.8 per 100,000.
Jamaica: 52.2 per 100,000

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate

Of course it is. Normal people dont kill other people for no reason. But the mentaly ill part is way to much work . The obvious lazy mans way out is to go after the tool , not the problem.

Which one? Clarity please

My mistake , wasnt your link but another I had open
US 4.8
Jamaica 52.2 Jamaica has gun control

Mexico. 22.7 with pretty much a total ban on guns. If Im not mistaken there are only 6000 registered guns in Mexico.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate

You don't include any other crimes, or shootings that involving domestic violence, depression where they shoot but don't necessarily kill; still a gun related crime Jamaica isn't even listed on that link....here's what is listed: US 4.8, Canada 1.6 (just miles away with a little regulation); England 1.2 ; Japan 0.4; Hong Kong 0.1; Ireland 1.2; Italy 0.9, France 1.1; Greece 1.5; Australia 1.0....see what I mean by comparing apples to apples by the types of society/poverty....Mexico and Jamaica is all you could come up with to compare to the US....we have the highest, more than double in the US at 4.8; all the others are lower and HAVE gun control.

You forgot Switzerland: 0.7 - no gun control, and every household has a gun. Hey, imagine that!

All gun control started as a way to keep blacks from having guns.

Read your posts and start from the top.

Your point? They don't all have gun regulations, we are on the same topic aren't we? I'm glad you learned how to copy and paste but you missed the part about "conversation and debate". If I needed data, I already looked. Thanks! Have you even travelled anywhere? You'll know that unlike Canada, England and other similar countries that run and compare to the United States, you can't even leave a resort because it's not safe enough in most of those countries. I guess you don't understand the term "apples to apples"

Please go ahead and go by education ...again, "apples to apples" is not Jamaica! Top education in the developped world. Do you see Jamaica listed? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/27/best-education-in-the-wor_n_2199795.html•
1. Finland 2. South Korea 3. Hong Kong 4. Japan 5. Singapore 6. United Kingdom 7. Netherlands 8. New Zealand 9. Switzerland 10. Canada 11. Ireland 12. Denmark
13. Australia 14. Poland 15. Germany 16. Belgium 17. U.S.A 18. Hungary
19. Slovakia 20. Russia

Please go ahead and go by education ...again, "apples to apples" is not Jamaica! Top education in the developped world. Do you see Jamaica listed? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/27/best-education-in-the-wor_n_2199795.html•
1. Finland 2. South Korea 3. Hong Kong 4. Japan 5. Singapore 6. United Kingdom 7. Netherlands 8. New Zealand 9. Switzerland 10. Canada 11. Ireland 12. Denmark
13. Australia 14. Poland 15. Germany 16. Belgium 17. U.S.A 18. Hungary
19. Slovakia 20. Russia

I see you are having trouble following: You just made my point Steve...you were mentioning that we needed to be compared to country's with similar education so I gave you the top 20 countries with the best education to show you that Jamaica was not a comparison to the United States: Steve Forte wrote 7:00 pm on Monday, January 14, 2013 "So whats apples to apples with the US? Canada? I dont think so. England , not even close. Pick a country that has as many uneducated and as many minorieties as we do and lets compare."

Ha ha! Have you been to Russia? Not exactly the same kind of thinking or ruling over there. Vladimire Putin ring a bell? Sarah Palin can see Russia from her back yard....wonder why she wants to watch them....I'm doubtful because they are just like us, not "apples to apples"

"Sarah Palin can see Russia from her back yard...."

Which she never said. That was on Saturday Night Live. You are quoting Tina Fey.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/palin/seealaska.asp

Dear Seamus! "You can actually see Russia from land" and "Putin rears his head and comes into air space of the united states and we can see them" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdftnFjQfzs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRpmC9GXa-I

Ms. Prince

The narrowest distance between mainland Russia and mainland Alaska is approximately 55 miles. However in the Bering Strait, there lies two small islands known as Big Diomede and Little Diomede. Big Diomede is owned by Russia while Little Diomede is owned by the U.S. The stretch of water between these two islands is only about 2.5 miles wide and actually freezes over during the winter so you could technically walk from the U.S. to Russia on this seasonal sea ice and seeing how there are no mountains, hills or trees on the Bering Strait, one can realistically see the Russia from one's U.S. "backyard" on Little Diomede Island.

As a matter of fact, during last season's National Geographic Show "Alaska State Troopers", they aired an episode where Native Alaskan hunters on this island would sometimes cross over to the Russian Island and vice versa.

Dear Hilltoper, did any of them also see Putin pop his head out of the fighter jets?

Dear Steve, in fact they do have some regulation because "men between the ages of 20 and 30 are conscripted into the militia and undergo military training, including weapons training...Each such individual is required to keep his army-issued personal weapon (the 5.56x45mm Sig 550 rifle for enlisted personnel and/or the 9mm SIG-Sauer P220 semi-automatic pistol for officers, military police, medical and postal personnel) at home. Up until October 2007, a specified personal retention quantity of government-issued personal ammunition (50 rounds 5.56 mm / 48 rounds 9mm) was issued as well, which was sealed and inspected regularly to ensure that no unauthorized use had taken place." Not only do they have regulations on the guns and who can have them, but they also have military training!!!! Here we have no weapon training, no regulations or millitary training for gun owners. They just buy them at Walmart or gun shows. If you can't see the difference than our conversation must end because I'm tired of you posting stuff that's not true, time and time again. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Switzerland

From Slate Magazine:
"America is not a particularly violent country, according to Matthew Miller of the Harvard School of Public Health. The rate of violent crimes falls right in the middle of the rates in other high-income nations. American kids are not more likely to get into fights at school, and Americans are not more likely to be mentally ill than people in comparable countries.

“What we do have is guns. Especially handguns. And we have more homicides,” Miller said. “Our firearm homicide rate is an order of magnitude higher than in these other countries. Our rates of homicides with non-gun mechanisms—knives, bats, whatever—is pretty much right where they are in other high income countries.”

And guns make all the difference, Miller said. “We’re not more violent, but when we are violent, we kill.”