Obama offers 'love, prayers of nation' to Newtown
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NEWTOWN, Conn. (AP) - A mournful President Barack Obama said Sunday that the nation is failing to keep its children safe, pledging that change must come after an elementary-school massacre left 20 children dead.
"What choice do we have?" Obama said. "Are we really prepared to say that we're powerless in the face of such carnage, that the politics are too hard?"
In a vigil for the fallen, in a moment of grief that spread around the world, Obama conceded that none of his words would match the sorrow. But he declared to the community of Newtown: "You are not alone."
For Obama, ending his fourth year in office, it was another sorrowful visit to another community in disbelief. It is the job of the president to be there, to listen and console, to offer help even when the only thing within his grasp is a hug.
The massacre of 26 children and adults at Sandy Hook Elementary on Friday elicited horror around the world, soul-searching in the United States, fresh political debate about gun control and questions about the incomprehensible - what drove the suspect to act.
Privately, Obama told Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy that Friday was the most difficult day of his presidency.
"What choice do we have?" Obama said. "Are we really prepared to say that we're powerless in the face of such carnage, that the politics are too hard?"
In a vigil for the fallen, in a moment of grief that spread around the world, Obama conceded that none of his words would match the sorrow. But he declared to the community of Newtown: "You are not alone."
For Obama, ending his fourth year in office, it was another sorrowful visit to another community in disbelief. It is the job of the president to be there, to listen and console, to offer help even when the only thing within his grasp is a hug.
The massacre of 26 children and adults at Sandy Hook Elementary on Friday elicited horror around the world, soul-searching in the United States, fresh political debate about gun control and questions about the incomprehensible - what drove the suspect to act.
Privately, Obama told Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy that Friday was the most difficult day of his presidency.
Thomas Jefferson was a gun fanatic...loved them to the extent that when he accidentally left one behind he had it sent for. His take on the constitution? A quote Thomas Jefferson wrote, "laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times".
For everyone that likes to say that an AR-15 is not an assault weapon, it is an assault weapon. ATF regulations calls it a S.A.W., Semiautomatic Assault Weapon.
http://www.atf.gov/publications/download/p/atf-p-5320-8/atf-p-5320-8.pdf
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http://www.atf.gov/publications/download/p/atf-p-5300-4.pdf
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This man makes me sick; could he be honest just once???????? Gun control is not the answer; if you want to commeit mass murder, there are other ways besides firearms!!!!
 @mustang sally Why didn't the gunman use the other ways to commit mass murder then? Let me answer that for you.......  because it was much easier to do it with an assault rifle with 30 round magazines that are designed to kill people efficiently.
 @mustang sally You know what makes me sick?  People that respond to what he actually said with nonsense like yours.
Do guns in your home really keep you safe? That's a question that's up for debate now. What about the shooter's mother that was shot in the face with her own gun by him?
 @backinmydayÂ
here's some examples but you'll never see them in a agenda driven fake stream media..
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http://www.thearmedcitizen.com/
 @vadersith  @backinmyday Using Kleck and Lott, the first debunked and the former having "accidentally lost" his data isn't helpful.
Handguns and Semi-automatic rifles are designed to kill efficiently with only the movement of an index finger as opposed to knives which require lunging or slicing or clubs which require swinging with a bit of upper body strength. They call the handgun the Great Equalizer, the most petite of women can use it against the Brawniest of Males. With that being said, a semi-automatic rifle and a fully automatic rifle or a semi-automatic rifle easily modified to fully automatic with a "Lightning Link or Autosear" are designed to increase the body count or increase deadly effectiveness, this is why the military has them. You are not going to be shooting hoards of deer with these semi-automatic rifles, only a deer bolt action deer rifle is needed. For people that say they need it for subsitance hunting, use a deer rifle. Even the Fish and Wild life require you put a wooden dowel inside of the magazine tube of a pump action shotgun to prevent a person for gaining an unfair hunting advantage by adding more shells. Re-institute the Assault Rifle ban, yes they are Assault Rifles by the definition of the National Firearms Act of 1968 by the A.T.F.
Why isn't the media talking about the fact that all these guns belonged to his mom, and according to neighbors, she was basically a gun nut!Â
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She knew her kid was disturbed and yet she had a mini arsenal in her home! What was she thinking allowing him access to a semi-auto assault rifle and hundreds of rounds of ammunition?Â
 @lakeview She obviously wasn't. How many parents think their kids are capable of this kind of act? Maybe there were plenty of warning signs and she should have removed the guns from the house. Maybe there wasn't.
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I know I had my issues when I was a teenager and my parents removed all guns from our house and kept them at the neighbors. He was a police sergeant. I have anger issues at times and is one of the reasons I will never own a gun whether it's for hunting or protection. I simple don't feel I need one or want the responsibility that should come along with it.
First reports said there were two gunmen and they simply never said another word, not one iota about that other man!!!! It's a setup!
The media is too interested in being "first" than getting the truth.........it's just stories for the National Enquirer. Too bad the media takes advantage of the grieving!
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 @thinkbeforeaccepting Your tinfoil cap is calling
@TruthinAdverts why the tinfoil hat? Because our governments are corrupt and some of us actually consider other possibilities?
 @thinkbeforeaccepting  @TruthinAdverts No, because you are getting your theories from lunatic fringe conspiracy theorists (let's face it... you can't even come up with this stuff on your own... you aren't that original). Either that or you are getting messages from Hale-Bopp
 @thinkbeforeaccepting There was a lot of misreported information. That's an issue with the media having to be the first with a story.
I would think a fairly simple way  to please both the gun control/ gun rights nuts would be to pass a law that says, if your gun is used in a crime, the gun owner is an accessory. Both shootings last week were from stolen weapons. If a gun owner knew they would face 20 years in prison if their gun was stolen I have to think a responsible owner would keep them under lock and key. It may not be the perfect answer, but I think it's something both sides could easily agree on.
@JK15Â Â Â Â So in your line of thinking........if your cars is stolen and used in a fatality hit and run, YOU are an accessory to vehicular homicde??
 @achoo2 "if your cars is stolen and used in a fatality hit and run, YOU are an accessory to vehicular homicde??"
If you enabled the theft by leaving the doors unlocked, the keys in the ignition or on the seat...you do have a portion of the responsibility for what happens with it.
Even more so with regards to a gun - because of the two the gun is the one designed - and owned - with it's function to kill in mind.
 @achoo2 Nope, someone does not steal the car with the intent on killing someone. Not to mention, it's much easier to keep a gun under lock and key. Really, I am shocked that so many people think that it's impossible to keep their guns from falling into the hands of others.Â
 @JK15  @achoo2 Maybe the stole the car with the intent to drive it to a murder. I doubt people would use their own car for a car bombing unless they plan on sitting in it at the time.
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I do agree that there needs to be much harsher penalties to irresponsible gun owners. Just like there needs to be more regulation on buying and selling firearms. Yes I need to pass a background check to go purchase a new gun but I don't think there is enough regulation in private sales.
 @JK15 So you take all the precautions you possible can to lock up said guns yet they still get stolen and there was absolutely nothing you could do to stop it. How would it be fair that you are now an accessory to whatever happens with those guns?
 @Hachee_Bungwhy If you are not responsible enough to keep your gun from being stolen, than you should not own one. If a person knew that the possibility existed that they could face time in prison, it would encourage them to lock their guns up a little tighter. I know a few people who have gun safes bolted to the garage floor. Is it possible to get inside their safes? I suppose given enough time it MIGHT be. But a burglar is not going to spend 2 days doing it. Â
@31F @JK15 That's why you change the combo, key safes are not safe.
 @Hachee_Bungwhy I agree, there is always a possibility, but if you are intent on owning a gun, it's your responsibility to make sure it does not fall into the hands of others.Â
 @JK15 All I'm saying is that no matter what you do there is always a POSSIBILITY of thing out of the owners control.
 @31F Again, it's on the owner to keep that from happening. If you can't keep your kids from getting their hands on your gun, you really should not have it in your house. The point of making a person an accessory would be to make sure those scenarios don't happen.
 @JK15 Not a burglar, but a child who happens to overhear the password to the safe, or happens to get hold of the key.  Now the child and their network of friends have access to a gun.  This scenario also happens.
The Dark Knight Rises and The Hunger Games. We'll get to them in a minute. This article is in the interest of full disclosure. The easy way out is to accept the basic facts given to us by the police and media. So let's take a breath, back up, and take a wider view. Multiple media sources state Adam Lanza, the accused Newtown mass murderer, wore a mask while he killed 26 people in the Sandy Hook Elementary School. So who IDed him as the killer? Obviously, the police, after the fact, when Lanza was dead. In any crime with such torrid political implications ("take away the guns"), we have to question all the facts. Presumably, the police found Lanza dead with a bullet wound from a gun lying next to him. They saw he was wearing a mask and body armor. They assumed he was the killer. Later, the gun was traced back to its owner, Lanza's mother. Bullet analysis of the victims revealed this was the murder weapon. So it was a murder-suicide. Unless there was a different person who did the shooting (cops found and arrested a man wearing camo in the woods near the school...what happened to him?). And who was the man police had "proned out" near the school? An alternate scenario: Lanza was the patsy. The actual shooter(s) in the school killed him with the murder weapon. Oh, well, that's impossible. Really? Why? Because "everybody knows" Lanza did it? Because the media report what the police tell them? Because the police drew the "obvious" conclusion when they found a masked and body-armored Lanza dead with the murder weapon next to him? It all comes down to this. Conventional reality vs. extraordinary reality. The overwhelming majority opt for the former every time. Lee Oswald was the lone shooter (the majority don't even believe this now). Sirhan Sirhan killed RFK (the evidence says he couldn't, because he standing on the wrong side of RFK). Lanza would be the perfect patsy. Loner, shy, vulnerable, behaved strangely, Asperger's Syndrome; MOTHER WAS AN AVID GUN COLLECTOR, had taught her son to shoot; relative of the family tells CBS News the mother was worried about collapse of the economy, wanted weapons in case she had to defend her home and family (DOOMSDAY PREPPER)...and there you have just the right scenario for the gun grabbers, who have been going at it full-bore in the last two days. "These kids would be still be alive if the mother wasn't a doomsday prepper." On top of that, as I wrote in my previous article, we now have the boggling connection to The Hunger Games. In that sci-fi novel and film, 24 children are picked to take part in a competitive, national, blood-sacrifice, killing ritual...one child survives at the end and 23 die. Twenty died in Newtown. And the author of The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins, lives in Sandy Hook, next to Newtown. And this means? This is just the kind of bizarre and insane op secret societies are reputed to enjoy. Ordinarily, I would ignore this sort of thing and just call it a coincidence, but it's too improbable. I can't prove the killings in Newtown were part of that kind of op. But I can't disregard it, either. The "coincidence" is just too stunning. And if The Hunger Game connection is real here, then all bets are off. If you recall, there was another recent mass murder in which a film played a part. Batman. The Dark Knight Rises. The Aurora theater. The Joker. James Holmes, also masked. There are serious questions about exactly where he was arrested. At the theater exit, as the media reported? Or as other witnesses say, in his car. Was Holmes a patsy, set up to take the fall for murders committed by pros? Corbin Dates, a purported eyewitness in the theater, and at least one other unnamed witness, spoke on camera to the media about a second shooter in the theater. Yes, we want answers. We want them quickly. We always do. But it's better to open up all lines of questioning, rather than chase a cooked-up scenario down the rabbit hole and end nowhere. Of course, in the Newtown murders, we have all sorts of contradictory reports that surfaced early on. These "errors" have been attributed to "typical confusion that always accompanies" the first stories from a scene of chaos. We always write off these mistakes. But why should we? There was the confusion about weapons. The killer used a hand gun. No he didn't. It was a rifle. There was a rifle found in the trunk of a car. No, three weapons were found. The killing weapon was Sig Sauer pistol. No, a rifle, It was a Bushmaster rifle. No, it was a Sig Sauer rifle. Were all these early errors made in the heat of a chaotic scene, or were some "errors" put out there to confuse a true investigation and possibly delay media and police, while the real killers escaped? Inferring from the medical examiner's statements, Lanza, if he was the killer and if he was using a Sig Sauer rifle, would have employed at least three clips in the killing spree. He would have had the persistence to reload that many times and continue the shooting? A violent outburst, to which Lanza might have been prone, if he indeed had a developmental disorder called "Asperger's." is not the same thing as the methodical murder of 27 people, reloading three or more clips in his rifle. And now let's back up again, to the scene of the crime, as police were inside the school. From reports, the police entered the school after the carnage was over. They found Lanza's body. They saw the mask and body armor. They inferred he was the shooter. But what would have prevented the real pros, the killers, from killing Lanza and dressing him in a mask and body armor and leaving him there? Oh, that couldn't happened. People wouldn't do that. Really? Why not? The two movies, The Hunger Games and The Dark Knight Rises, provided a backdrop of dystopian chaos and violence, and a society in which coherence has broken down. Criminal forces, winning. The vision of a peaceful and prosperous nation in which institutional justice stands a chance, shattered. Whether you call "them" the Globalists, the secret societies, the Illuminati, the elites, the Bilderbergs, the CFR, the Trilateralists, you come up with the same game plan: Destroy America, destroy the idea of individual freedom, destabilize the webs of community, engender fear, make it seem necessary for top-down control to be exerted, "to save us all" from rampant chaos. These two movies, with tremendous advance publicity and anticipation, bolster the premise that American is too far gone to save. Now, on top of that, we have two horrendous mass murders connected to these films, and the murders seem to prove the point: we are, in fact, too far gone...unless our wiser leaders step in and make great changes in the way we live. What changes? Take all the guns. Restrict freedom. Spy on all of us 24/7, no matter where we are, no matter what we are doing. Then and only then can we have peace. Then and only then can we live side by side in a Matrix of happiness. "If you're not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to fear." Yes. Be good little boys and girls. Obey all the rules. Accept new rules, whenever they are dictated. Keep your eyes straight ahead. Think good thoughts. Be positive. But even then, be warned, as in Newtown, the perfect little American community, we can experience the murder of innocence. That's the lesson that is being imparted. Even then, we learn, there will be a struggle to establish this happy Matrix we all desire. Therefore, all the more reason to surrender our rights and freedoms, so our leaders can work their overarching solutions without resistance and interruption. From chaos, order.
 @thinkbeforeaccepting You know, honest people hire a publicist when they want to publish a book...
@thinkbeforeaccepting Your reading too far into it, nothing more than a whacked out loaner who wasn't properly put in a mental hospital from the start. I think he went after his councelor at the school and didn't like what he heard and started shooting everybody. Sick bastard, really sad. Arm the teachers and hire armed guards at all schools and Malls!!
 @thinkbeforeaccepting somebody ID this guy... he's going next
@TruthinAdverts You just accept stuff without thinking! That's what's completely wrong with mindless sheep!!!!
 @TruthinAdverts  @thinkbeforeaccepting Amen.
 @thinkbeforeaccepting  @TruthinAdverts my friend... that wasn't even a legible sentence... frustrated eh? = )
@TruthinAdverts Whatever, its just a bit odd to me and this article written actually thinks instead of feeds of a media tit
 @thinkbeforeaccepting  @TruthinAdverts my friend... it's ironically the people who use cut and paste slogans like "mindless sheep" that I'd be most concerned with
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You are 100% correct Mr. President. Something must be done to manage all the mental illness, the people who are the ticking time bombs hiding in the dark shadows, waiting for unleash some new unthinkable horror. Be swift. Research, facilities, doctors, counseling. The top two issues that cause Americans the most pain are cancer (the horrow at home) and mental illness (the horror in the news), and we do not have a cure for either.
 @dontneedheels and be prepared to pay the taxes for the programs you so enthusiastically propose
These teachers did everything they possibly could do to protect those children, what do you do against some in an elementary school with an assault rifle?
the person did not have an assault style rifle.. (if it were an actual assault rifle, it would be capable of full automatic fire) although he did have one in his car... it was pistols that he had with him.
 @Mr. H Sir, the guy had a Bushmaster AR-15 and two other back-up pistols, a SigSaur 9mm and a Glock 10mm. Call it what you will, look up the A.T.F. definition of an assault rifle, I have the, it's too easy to look up the National Firearms Act.
 @Mr. H He did however have a Bushmaster rifle with magazines that allowed him to discharge rounds as rapidly as he could squeeze the trigger, and at a much faster rate than a bolt action would have allowed him. In addition they make 30 round magazines for those weapons, and that's a lot of bullets per minute that can be fired. I wouldn't try to minimize the killing potential of this particular weapon against a large number of people in short order. As was evidenced in this situation. .Â
Just love it when all the gun nuts come out of the woodwork screaming their stupid and expected angst against ANY possible proposal for something as sane as an assault rifle ban. Immediately they begin with all the crap about their rights, how we don't ban cars, knives, crowbars and all the other idiotic garbage they spew. A ban on assault rifles (and improved mental health programs) is a reasonable, sane response to the mass killings we have all witnessed over the past decade - mostly committed with ASSAULT RIFLES... So, you gun nut twits - get over it.
So why not just put armed guards at the schools so a would be attacker would not consider it?
 @8nthegate I'm not opposed to having a guard. Many high schools have "resource officers" now.Â
 @8nthegate You can't put armed guards everywhere... you can eliminate the assault rifles.
@ytboarder @8nthegate Just like we eliminated pot, heroine, and coke by having them illegal. Make all the laws you want to, there are types of people who won't obey regardless. The ones who do obey would never commit such acts to begin with.
 @8nthegate And I suppose you buy your illegal stolen assault rifles from law abiding citizens too. You country hicks  are the scary ones.
You must be an ignorant city slicker. You don't even own a gun. Apparently you've never heard of buying used guns, Im the LAW ABIDING CITIZEN.
@cyclops @8nthegate I believe in the constitution, the bottom line, is that my right to possess, and use any firearms is a protected right, ... not a privelage, such as driving.
Only felons, and the mentally ill cannot possess them.. and that, is reasonable..
@ytboarder @8nthegate You cannot eliminate assault rifles...
 @8nthegate Most people wouldn't know where to go to get an assault rifle.  Pretty obvious what side of the law you are on.
And you cant eliminate assult rifles, only make them illegal for law abiding people to own. You can buy used or stolen ones anywhere. Just criminals will have them. or people who don't mind going to prison.
So we will start seeing more suicide bombers with bombs, ingenius!!
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@ytboarder I agree with you, this is why I wrote the following post in response to one of the gun nuts that made the same point: Comparing semiautomatic rifles to diesel, fertilizer, and Ryder trucks are what's called a false analogy. Ryder trucks are designed to do one thing, fertilizer is designed to do one thing, and diesel was specifically designed to do one thing, yes they can have dual uses for nefarious reason, but they are manufactured for only one thing. Now guns on the other hand are designed for one thing, killing one person at a time per trigger squeeze with moderate accuracy, and semiautomatic rifle are designed to kill one person at a time per trigger squeeze with very high accuracy and reduced locking time between trigger squeezes, with magazine capacities of 20, 30, 60, and 100, and 250 round drums. Not to mention, that these semiautomatic rifles can still be easily modified to go fully automatic by adding an auto-sear or a Lightning Link, which both are stamped metal parts and you can get the dimensions off the internet to drop it right in to an AR-15. Who needs a semiautomatic rifle for hunting? I say reinstitute the assault weapons ban and require a person or entity to purchase an A.T.F. Tax stamp if they want to own one.
backinmyday, modifying a semi-automatic rifle to shoot fully auto, is ILLEGAL, meaning we already have laws against such behavior.Â
There are lots of semi-automatic rifles, and shotguns that are used for hunting. However, making laws for incidents that had no direct affect the masses of the united states, is stupid. It is a knee jerk reaction based upon someone's dislike of any type of guns.
I have several semi-automatic rifles... and they haven't killed anyone... well, one may have, at some point... but it is an M1-Garand..
The 2nd amendment, has been infringed upon quite often, and it does need to stop. The reason for this, is that fro some reason, this society feels they cannot hold people accountable for their actions, but would rather focus on the tools the people use when they do such henious things.
Personally, I feel that school officials should be armed. This perpetrator knew that no one would be armed inside the school.. if there were people armed, it would have been very short lived engagement with no children hurt or killed..
Now, thats it in a nutshell, Kudos!! Case closed!!! Apartment city slicker dwellers that think the world is made of marshmallows just do not get it!!! Don't look any further than thier next paycheck!!
@Mr. H This is not a "Knee Jerk Reaction", these type of incidents have been happenening for years, remember Columbine? As for the legality of modifying a semi-automatic rifle to make if fully automatic, that is a Moot point when you want to KILL EVERYONE! And as for everyone being armed in an Elementary School, there would a lot of Law Enforment officials that would disagree with you, Really? Teacher teaching kindergardeners and first graders with a gun on the hip or in the purse? Get real.
Taking away semi autos will do nothing, they will just use bombs, and bombs are already illegal.